CEBU PHILIPPINES' VERSION OF THRILLER (MICHAEL JACKSON)

The prisoners in Cebu have been mourning Michael Jackson's passing. View this, and be sure to view their original rendtion of "Thriller." It's a scream. Take a look at their "Hustle" and "Macarena" as well.

I think I will have to see them perform this coming January.

They practice 4 hours and day and don't have time to be mad, according to the prison officer.

http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=115660972779&h=4Lmig&u=ofFC4&ref=nf - This original has 27.6 million YouTube hits as we talk.

And here's their preparation for their tribute to Michael Jackson. Click here

I guess I should confess I'm Cebuana,which is why I'm so amused at all this.

SAN JUAN BATISTA FIESTA OF PARIAN, OLD CEBU

The Parian district of historic old Cebu just celebrated the fiesta of its patron, St. John the Baptist. I am waiting to hear how it turned out, but here's an early quick report from Atty. Lynley Ocampo who attended the event with the Osmena Canoys (mother and daughter). I'll continue to paste reports as they come in. The old pictures show the Parian triangle and Parian church as these once appeared. The old church was torn down and there is a small chapel that stands in its place. Now under the care of the Cofradia de San Juan Batista, the chapel was where tridium prayers and the fiesta Mass were held. Cardinal Vidal said the Mass. Knowing the Cofradia people, headed by Louie Nacorda, the chapel was decorated nicely, and the antique statues of San Juan, Jesus, and Angel held court in there.


More as news comes in.

From Lynley Ocampo:
Thank you very much for the invitation. We had a very lovely evening. It
was also very interesting to see Ng Titang Diola for the very first time.
It was a different experience for me. The Canoys also give their thanks.

During the short program, Louie told us that he petitioned San Juan if he
could please stop the rain - or not make it rain from 9am to 9pm since it
had been raining for two days already. When Louie realized that the
program started late, he asked for an extension of one hour. It hasn't
rained even up to this morning. We were unable to join the procession and
went straight to dinner. Am looking forward to next year's festivities.



From Louie Nacorda:
...we had the most grandiose feast ever yesterday! The Mass and procession were well attended; we had three carrozas, three bands, and Casa Gorordo was full house, up to the balcony! The weather was cool and dry. St. John the Baptist must have been very happy. Even the Gorordo ghosts made manifestations to some people in the azotea!

Viva Señor San Juan Bautista!

Evolution of a Book Cover - Finding God (Anvil)- w/ addendum by Marily

I've been working on 3 book projects. I thought I'd share a bit of the process of the evolution of the book cover of Finding God: True Stories of Spiritual Encounters. First, I'd like to mention that my coeditor is Marily Y. Orosa and the contributors to this anthology are: Mila Aguilar, Evelyn Seno, M.G. Bertulfo, Tony Robles, Edgar Poma, Aileen Ibardaloza, Paulino Lim, Jr., Evelina Galang, Raquel Balagtas, Brian Roley, Marlinda Tan, Lisa Martinez, Felice Sta. Maria, C. Sophia Ibardaloza, Susan Evangelista, & Reme Grefalda. Marily and I also have essays in the book.

The book cover came about this way: Marily has an original painting of a forest scene, which we decided to use for the cover. Since Marily has her own publishing house, we have an agreement with Anvil that Marily's publishing house will design the cover, even while Anvil designs the inside pages and does the final printing. Marily's artist took the artwork and designed a first draft. Marily and I gave him feedback and he came up with a slightly different version. Since we have more comments, he'll tweak the cover some more. Once the artist gets our final approval, the cover will be forwarded to Anvil who will finalize the whole thing: inside pages and cover, after which, the files will be sent to the printer's.

Book making is a slow, tedious process, from getting the contents in order, to making the book beautiful. Even the choice of paper matters. Every part of a book must be given thought.

I couldn't upload the colored pdf file so I switched it to jpg, which came out black and white. This is the second draft, so the final cover will have minor changes. And of course it will be in color - greens, and golds, very rich and florid.

The articles in this anthology are quite strong and I can't wait to see the book itself.

~~~
Here's more from Marily Ysip Orosa about the cover (Joe is Marily's husband who unfortunately passed away last January):

"The cover is an original watercolor painting by Dante Divina, my former art director now turned painter. It is a secret passage to Mt. Everest. Joe during his illness encouraged Dante to prepare for an exhibit, his first, which Joe would fully sponsor. For the next 8 months, Joe whether he was in the USA, Singapore or the phils would clip nice scenic images for Dante to paint. The cover of our book was Joe's favorite and was used as the theme painting for the exhibit held April 2008. It is entitled SECRET PLACE, and hangs in Joe's office room."

Updates Finding God, Growing Up Filipino II, and Fundamentals of Creative Writing

Here are some updates on the 3 books I'm working on, which will hopefully be released in 2009:

1. Finding God - coedited by Cecilia Brainard & Marily Orosa, Anvil Publisher
The cover is finished; it uses a lovely painting of a trail in a green quiet forest. Studio 5 Designs is doing the cover, even though Anvil is publishing the book. My co-editor informs me that the back cover will have the blurbs, and will show our picture with this beautiful scripture reading:

"For I know the plans I have for you. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans for hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV).

2. Growing Up Filipino II (ed Brainard)- With the help of Tony Robles, I finally corrected the manuscript for the nth time. I shared the manuscript with the contributors and there were still mistakes. Paulino Lim's "papayas" ended up as "Loloyas," for instance. How that happened, I'll never know.

3. Fundamentals of Creative Writing (by Brainard)- Since I proofed it, I haven't heard back from Anvil, my publisher so I'm assuming the book has gone ahead with production and will be released by August if not sooner. I think Anvil was trying to catch the beginning of the school year, June.

These are all the updates for now. I've been busy.

CAT TO CAT: KIKI'S LETTER TO SUNDANCE

(My cat Kiki asked me to post the following letter to Sundance. Sundance is a young cat that befriended Kiki on Facebook. Here is a picture of Sundance, and you can look her up in Facebook under Sundance Knows - Cecilia)

Dear Sundance,
I've decided to mentor you. You are young and innocent and there is much to learn to be able to survive in this world.

Perhaps the most important advice I can give you is TO BE CUTE AT ALL TIMES. This is vital to your existence. By "cute" I am referring to both external and internal cuteness.

The external is obvious. When we cats are born, we are normally cute: small, furry, fluffy, with heart-rending cries that tug at the hearts Feeders. But that kittenish cuteness does not last. Do not think that for a moment, otherwise you will be doomed!

No, we cats have to learn to groom ourselves constantly. My mother taught me that. Lick your fur, wipe your face, especially around your eyes and mouth. I do not have to mention your privates - that is obvious. And chew some grass to clean your teeth and breath. Fleas can be a problem, especially in the summer, but hopefully your Feeder uses Vantage or Frontline once a month. It's a bummer getting treated; I myself get queasy for a couple of days, but in the long run,it's worth it. You don't want fleas on you. Fleas can cause worms, and that's a whole other problem altogether, very un-cute to say the least, to have wiggly worms in your poop. Your Feeder will NOT find that endearing.

Don't forget to clean your ears, otherwise you might get ear mites,and Feeders also find that disgusting.

The other kind of cuteness I want to address has to do with making a real effort to win the heart of your Feeder - totally and completely so that he or she belongs to you for the rest of your life. Even when you become old like me, he/she will still think you are a delightful kitten.

Look at me, I'm 17, very old for a cat, but the Woman-who-opens-cans thinks I'm incredibly cute. She takes pictures of me, checks on me constantly, makes sure I have my favorite food (including people tuna, salmon, and bits of steak - really, anything I want). She is at my beck and call. This is because I won her heart completely when I was young.

I saw the picture of you on the shoulder of your Feeder. That's good. That's a start. You have to learn to climb on her lap or get into bed with her and snuggle up close. You have to purr, even when you're not in the mood. For some reason Feeders think purring is very cute. You should also bat their faces with your paws. And don't forget to lick their faces; they also think that's cute. You have to be constantly visible to them. When they walk into the room, there you are laying on the bed, softly snoring; when they walk into the kitchen,there you are looking straight into their eyes, meowing; when they are working at the desk or in the garden, there you are sidling up against their legs; when they are watching TV, there you are on their laps. It is the constant contact that makes you become so much a part of their lives that they come to believe they could never exist without you.

Once this happens, you can have anything you want. You can just about do anything you want. I say "anything" not "everything" in this case because while Feeders can forgive occasional outbursts of temper from us cats (I myself have scratched the Woman-who-opens-cats when she pissed me off), they will NOT tolerate peeing or pooping around their house. That can get you in serious trouble; in fact, that could be a death sentence.

I will close for now Sundance because I have to run to the rose garden while the sun is up. It was cloudy where I live this morning but now the sun is up and I just love laying around our rose garden.

I am attaching a picture of me on a bed, to prove my point about getting what you want when you play it right.


Yours truly,
Kiki

Excerpt from my cat Kiki's Memoirs!

(I found this excerpt of my cat Kiki's Memoirs. I knew she was working on a novel, but didn't know about her memoirs. - Cecilia)


When I think of my mother,I recall her soft belly which I loved kneading. A memory comes to me of a sunny afternoon and Mother and the six of us in the wicker basket near the kitchen door. The door was partly open and sunlight angled in, warming our basket, warming us. I was kneading the belly of my mother and she was licking me all over so that by the time I was suckling on her teat, I was damp all over. The memory of it sends shivers up my spine. Mother was white, pure white and she always smelled of milk. I don't remember a lot of details about her because we were together for only seven weeks. I know that she had long lashes because they used to tickle when she licked me. Her pink tongue felt raspy as she licked me all over and the feel of that sand-papery tongue against my tender skin was heaven. She was meticulous about keeping the six of us clean. I believe this is where I got my own meticulousness; I can spend hours grooming myself.

Mother was just a year old when she had us. She had a flighty Feeder, a student who forgot to bring her to the vet to have her fixed, and since my mother was a gad-about who enjoyed staying up late in back alleys, she quickly became pregnant. I do not know my father, but I assume he was one of those late-night encounters behind some garbage cans under the moonlight. He was no doubt a tuxedo cat like me and two of my siblings. The other three had white fur, like Mother.

Thinking of that distant past fills me with conflicting feelings of happiness and sadness. While my mother seemed to be the perfect mom - feeding us, grooming us constantly, she had a marshmallow personality. She didn't know how to handle the intense sibling rivalry that went on: the white furred ones against the tuxedo ones. Unprovoked the white ones constantly nudged us away from Mom's teats. The other two males fought back, and got their share of Mother's milk. But not me. This saddens me even now, because Mother could have done something. Certainly a little nip to the ears of those wicked siblings would have done the trick. But no, she lay there, smiling, looking content, as if we were in paradise when in fact hellish fighting went on right under her nose.

I became the runt of the litter. I looked like someone from the third world with kwashiorker, and truly,I could have died, if the student hadn't given me away to another student. I was not yet weaned and this Boy-who-opened-the-cans had to bottle feed me. In fact, he didn't do it; his girlfriend did. Bless her. By the time she was out of the picture, I was fortunately big enough to eat regular cat food, which the Boy-who-opened-the-cans used to leave before he left for school. He would be gone all day and I used to get terribly bored in his apartment, so I took to chewing and ripping apart whatever clothes and papers I could find. And I didn't always use the cat box, just to get a rise from him when he got in at night. Once I peed into his leather boot, and shortly after that, he turned me over to the Woman-who-opens-cans. At that time she had another cat, a white one whose appearance reminded me of my mother, except that this cat absolutely hated me...

(And here the excerpt ends. I'll have to hunt around to find more pages. Kiki hides them in the most unlikely places: under the sink, under the bed in the guest room, etc.)

Working for Freedom - Violence vs. Nonviolence

I've been thinking about Che Guevara (again) and how he chose to pick up the gun. I've been comparing him to people like Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Burma's Aung San San Kyi who have chosen nonviolence. I am not sure which is the more effective way. One wants to say that nonviolence is the way, but I wonder how many people have chosen this path and died and were never even heard of. I wonder if in some cases revolution is more effective in wresting freedom from the ones holding it.

I'm thinking about those empires in Egypt and in Turkey that swept in and replaced old empires; these did not happen peacefully. Alexander the Great, the Ottomans, and others had armies; they fought and conquered.

I agree that the more noble activity is to change the heart and mind, the actual chemistry of a human being - and this is what Gandhi, King, and Kyi have/are doing. But I think this works only with the help of the media.

When the media is repressed as in China and Burma, the world barely knows of the struggles for freedom within those countries. People die in those countries for their causes, and we don't even know of them.

Does change still happen even in these cases?

I'd read about how the anger of the oppressor is diminished when the oppressed does not fight back, but takes it. Theoretically, the oppressor runs out of anger.

Could this be true?