Interview of Cecilia Brainard by Venice Rian Ong

 

Photo taken at literary event hosted by Cebuano Studies Center last Feb. 2023

Venice Rian Ong, 12th grader from Saint Lorenzo Ruiz school in Cebu interviewed me recently.  I am sharing his questions and my answers.

1.       When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer? 

While I’d been writing since I was around 9 or 10 years old, I didn’t fully realize I wanted or was meant to be a writer until I was a grown woman with three young children.

Let me elaborate: After my father died when I was nine, I began writing him letters to update him of my life. These were my early writings. When I was a teenager I began diary writing. I always enjoyed writing, but after high school I thought I wanted to be an engineer. Later I thought I wanted to be a film maker. It was this interest in film making that led me to California where I went to film school at UCLA. I discovered that film making is an expensive and highly collaborative venture. I did not pursue this career.

            By this time I was a young wife and mother and focused on taking care of my family. It was during this time when stories would come into my head and I had to write them down. I later took Creative Writing Classes at UCLA-Extension’s Writers Program to learn the craft and business. Bit by bit I started to get stories published. But it wasn’t until the children were in school and I looked for work and found work as a fund raiser when I realized that I couldn’t work, take care of the family, and write. I talked to my husband about this and he told me to do what I wanted to do. I told the office that was ready to hire me that I couldn’t take the job, and I decided then to be a writer and take care of my family. 

 

My Book Donations to Philippine Libraries via Christian Acevedo

 

 

I donated books for Philippine Libraries via Christian George Acevedo, librarian/teacher/scholar at the Capiz Philippines Main Library.  He distributed them to other librarians.  Thank you, Christian, and best wishes to Philippine librarians.

The books I sent included most of my titles and more.  Please visit my official site, ceciliabrainard.com for information about my books.  

#filipinobooks #filipinoliterature #filipinolibraries #capizlibraries

Watch also: THE CEBUANA IN THE WORLD: Cecilia Manguerra Brainard Writing out of Cebu

Belgium in April: Get Me to the Nunnery by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard in Positively Filipino

 

I'm sharing the link to my recent article in Positively Filipino "Belgium in April: Get Me to the Nunnery." It is a travel article that involves my my search for the roots of my Belgian nuns at St. Theresa's College Cebu and Manila. Mother Marie Louise De Meester, the foundress of the ICM sisters, was born in Roesalare, Belgium and who became a nun at Ypres, Belgium, which I visited.

http://www.positivelyfilipino.com/magazine/belgium-in-april-get-me-to-the-nunnery

"In April, when the weather was cold, I found myself in Belgium. We were there on a Netherlands-Belgium river cruise because my husband wanted to catch the tulip bulbs in full bloom in Amsterdam. The bulbs are in bloom only for a few weeks from late March to early May. Our river cruise included stops in the Netherlands and Belgium, with a grand finale at the Keukenhof tulip garden in Lisse, southwest of Amsterdam..." Please read on in the PF site. 

#tags: travel, Europe, Belgium, low countries, ICM nuns. STC sister, religious nuns, Philippine education 

Thank you #ParisLitUp

 

 

Thanks to the folks at Paris Lit Up / Culture Rapide for featuring me at their Thursday night reading last April 26, 2023. Thanks to Leah Soeiro Nentis and Ursula Wynne who greeted and took care of me.

This literary group had also featured me last April 26, 2018. Thanks to Emily Ruck Keene, and Matthew. 

Read also

Pastel Art No. 1 at Musee d'Orsay

Pastel Art No. 2 at Musee d'Orsay

Art at Musee d'Orsay 

River Cruise of the Netherlands and Belgium - Bruge or Brugge

 River Cruise of the Netherlands and Belgium - Antwerp

River Cruise of the Netherlands and Belgium - Hoorn and Arnhem

River Cruise of the Netherlands and Belgium - Amsterdam Canals  

Cecilia Brainard's Selected Short Stories Wins 40th National Book Awards in Short Fiction, English 

Tags: PLU, Open mic reading, poetry reading, Paris poetry reading, #parislitup #culturerapide

Art at Musee d'Orsay - #3

 

Here are more art by Masters at the Musee d'Orsay in Paris. These are works by Vincent Van Gogh and by Paul Gauguin. We visited the museum once, but I could have visited it a few more times to really appreciate and absorb the art there.  Wonderful museum!

Pastel Art at Musee d'Orsay - No. 2

 

This is the second batch of photos I took at the pastel exhibit at the Musee d'Orsay in Paris. These are by Master Artists Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet and Mary Cassatt. 

I was thrilled to see these famous works with my own eyes. I had the opportunity to scrutinize the strokes these masters did using pastels and crayon. They knew how to draw. They did not smear their pastel to blend colors, but used strokes, so that in some cases, the look is quite graphic.

I have more photos of paintings and I'll get that up in my blog. The artists among you will enjoy them. I should clarify that I'm not posting all the pastels displayed there, but I am choosing the ones that spoke to me. 

Enjoy! 

Pastel Art at the Musee d'Orsay - No. 1

 

During a recent visit to Paris, we visited the Musee d'Orsay, which had a Spring 2023 Pastel Exhibition.  I love pastels and try to learn on my own.  I still have to find a pastel teacher. Most of my art teachers don't like this medium.  I'm posting some of the pastels that I really liked. This is set 1.

 I was fascinated by the Olympia done by Edouard Manet, and which was copied by Paul Gauguin.  Degas bought the Gauguin copy to hang in his place.  

 

 

River Cruise of the Netherlands and Belgium - Keukenhof Gardens

 

 

Tulips were introduced to Holland in 1593 from Turkey. These flowers became very popular, so much so that "tulipmania" occurred. In the mid-1600s, tulip bulbs were so coveted that the Dutch invested in them. There was a tulip market, and bulbs would be auctioned, and people paid for the bulbs. But then speculation of how much money one could make from the bulbs came in and the bidding soared. At the height of the bubble market, tulips sold for 10,000 guilders, which was equivalent to the value of a mansion in Amsterdam.  The bubble occurred around 1634 to 1637, but then the bubble burst. 

River Cruise of the Netherlands and Belgium - Bruges

 

IN 2013, WE HAD PLANNED to visit Bruge as part of a driving tour through Normandy and Belgium. As things turned out, Lauren had an accident in Paris, broke his hip, ended up in the Clinique Blomet where he as he puts it "got screwed by the French."  His French doctor, Dr. Atassi, put two stainless steel pins to hold the bones together.  

When we explained to the doctor that this accident had messed up our plans to visit Bruge and other places, he scrunched his face, and poo-pooed and said, "Oh, it always rains in Bruge anyway." It was at that moment, raining in Paris.

Love Has Seven Names by Hadewijch of Brabant & Translations by Ralph Semino Galan

After visiting Belgium and seeing the beguine housing complex in Bruge, I became interested in the Beguines. They were women from the Middle Ages who lived as a community to pray and serve their communities. Unlike nuns, they did not make perpetual vows.  There is information about them in this link https://www.greynun.org/2020/02/the-beguines-of-medieval-europe-mystics-and-visionaries/ .

Hadewijch of Brabant was a 13th century beguine, poet, and mystic who came from the Duchy of Brabant, now Antwerp. 

I was delighted to learn that Professor Ralph Semino Galan, a friend and fellow-writer, translated one of Hadewijch's poems from English to Filipino and Cebuano. With his permission, I am sharing these with you. 

To have a better appreciation of the translations, I am sharing Professor Galan's bio here:

Ralph Semino Galán, poet, literary and cultural critic, translator and editor, is the Assistant Director of the UST Center for Creative Writing and Literary Studies. He is an Associate Professor of Literature, the Humanities and Creative Writing in the UST Faculty of Arts and Letters and the UST Graduate School. 

He is the author of the following books: The Southern Cross and Other Poems (UBOD New Authors Series, NCCA, 2005), Discernments: Literary Essays, Cultural Critiques and Book Reviews (USTP, 2013), From the Major Arcana [poems] (USTPH, 2014), and Sa mga Pagitan ng Buhay at Iba pang Pagtutulay [translations] (USTPH, 2018). 

He is currently working on a research project sponsored by the UST Research Center for Culture, Arts and Humanities titled Labaw sa Bulawan: Translating 300 Mindanao Poems from Cebuano into English (1930-2020), as well as a book of poetry in Cebuano titled Mga Kalag Nga Nahisalaag, Mga Dili Ingon Nato: Mga Balak ug Garay.

The Filipino translation of Hadewijch's poem is included in Sa Mga Pagitan ng Buhay…

 

LOVE HAS SEVEN NAMES

by Hadewijch  

English version by Willis Barnstone and Elene Kolb
Original Language Dutch

Love has seven names.
Do you know what they are?
Rope, Light, Fire, Coal
make up its domain.

The others, also good,
more modest but alive:
Dew, Hell, the Living Water.
I name them here (for they
are in the Scriptures),
explaining every sign
for virtue and form.
I tell the truth in signs.
Love appears every day
for one who offers love.
That wisdom is enough.

Love is a ROPE, for it ties
and holds us in its yoke.
It can do all, nothing snaps it.
You who love must know.

The meaning of LIGHT
is known to those who
offer gifts of love,
approved or condemned.

The Scripture tell us
the symbol of COAL:
the one sublime gift
God gives the intimate soul.

Under the name of FIRE, luck,
bad luck, joy or no joy,
consumes. We are seized
by the same heat from both.

When everything is burnt
in its own violence, the DEW,
coming like a breeze, pauses
and brings the good.

LIVING WATER (its sixth name)
flows and ebbs
as my love grows
and disappears from sight.

HELL (I feel its torture)
damns, covering the world.
Nothing escapes. No one has grace
to see a way out.

Take care, you who wish
to deal with names
for love. Behind their sweetness
and wrath, nothing endures.
Nothing but wounds and kisses.

Though love appears far off,
you will move into its depth.

 

Cecilia Brainard's Selected Short Stories Wins 40th National Book Awards in Short Fiction

 

Read CNN article "Full List: The Winners of the 40th National Book Awards"

I am grateful that my Selected Short Stories was honored with the 40th National Book Award in the category of  Best Book of Short Fiction in English.

The book was quietly released in 2021 when Covid was still causing havoc, and like most books released during the time of pandemic, it was ignored.  I am therefore happy that the Manila Circle's Critics and the National Book Board Development found merit in the book.

Thanks to my publisher, University of Santo Tomas Publishing house and the UST folks who have included me in their family: Ailil Alvarez, Ned Parfar, Jack Wigley, Jing Hidalgo, Ralph Galan, and many others.

There is more information about my Selected Short Stories in this link:

The book is available from Lazada and Shopee in the Philippines. Amazon and Barnes and Noble also carry the book.

Read also 

Rappler "Full List..." 

 

Recent blogs by Cecilia 

  River Cruise .... Keukenhof Gardens

River Cruise of the Netherlands and Belgium - Bruge or Brugge

 River Cruise of the Netherlands and Belgium - Antwerp

River Cruise of the Netherlands and Belgium - Hoorn and Arnhem

River Cruise of the Netherlands and Belgium - Amsterdam Canals  

Tags: Philippine books, Filipino books, Filipino short stories, Filipino literature, Cebuano literature, Cebu literature, NBA Awards, Book Awards

 

River Cruise of the Netherlands and Belgium - Ghent & Ypres

 

   

BY THE TIME we visited Ghent Belgium, I understood that Belgium is a wealthy country. I see it as more lowkey than countries like Spain, France or Switzerland or Germany. It is probably because of my own ignorance but I had a better sense of the history and personalities of other countries.

 

River Cruise of the Netherlands and Belgium - Antwerp

 

 

OUR FIRST STOP in Belgium was Antwerp, known as the capital of the world's diamond trade. No, I did not go shopping for diamonds there, and we didn't even visit the Diamond Museum. 

River Cruise of the Netherlands and Belgium - Hoorn and Arnhem

 

This continues my blog about our recent River Cruise to the Netherlands and Belgium.  The first blog entry about Amsterdam can be read here: 

https://cbrainard.blogspot.com/2023/04/river-cruise-of-netherlands-and-belgium.html

 

FROM AMSTERDAM, our ship the Oscar Wilde had to be raised UP to sea-level via locks -- that was sort of mind-boggling to watch. Then overnight we sailed in the open sea, rough at times, then we were back in still canals and we sailed through locks once more.

Our first stop was the picturesque city called Hoorn, in the Netherlands. We walked off our boat and saw the harbor, darling shops, cafes, and bars. Narrow winding streets, pristine canals with ducks swimming about. And it was a lovely sunny day, not too cold because the temperature could drop to 10 degrees when we were there. That was frigid for me.

 

River Cruise of the Netherlands and Belgium - Amsterdam Canals

 

  

We did a River Cruise of the Netherlands and Belgium and I'll be posting pictures and short videos of that trip, so stay tuned. 

 

In  Amsterdam, we did a canal cruise. One of my advocacies is cleaning up rivers in Cebu, Philippines. The canals and rivers are chock-full of garbage there. When I see clean and beautiful canals in other places, like Amsterdam for instance, I feel sad about the rivers and canals in the Philippines and hope that people will stop throwing garbage in the waterways, and and the government will do more to clean up the Philippine rivers.

I digress because this blog entry is about Amsterdam. 

Crypto's Last Stand: Stablecoin by Manny Gonzalez

 

The following article was first published in the Philippine Star. It is reprinted here by permission of the author Manny Gonzalez.  

Crypto’s Last Stand: Stablecoin

 By Manuel González

Note to Editor

In respect of the current subject: Four years before Paul Krugman did in December 2022, Mr. Gonzalez debunked not only cryptos but the entire blockchain concept. He brings a unique multi-disciplinary perspective to this issue – public policy, financial analysis, and technology. He once blew the whistle on the hollow balance sheet of ADELA, a multibillion-dollar New York company owned by the world’s then leading industrial and financial corporations, and spent a year advising on its liquidation. (The Wall Street Journal reported this story back in the 1980s.) As an officer of the World Bank, Mr. Gonzalez dealt with governments and financial institutions. As an investment banker in Hong Kong he designed financial derivatives and assessed IPOs. On the tech side, he has been awarded 7 US Patents related to gathering information on the internet (uspto.gov, Inventor: Gonzalez, Emmanuel). He is now a successful hospitality and food-manufacturing entrepreneur.

 MBA Columbia University, Robert J. McKim, Jr., Fellow, and Roswell McCrea Award winner. For more details and list and texts of publications, please see www.plantationbay.com/Credentials.asp. His cryptocurrency articles: Bitcoins — the Emperor Has No Clothes (January 2018); Bitcoins AND Blockchains — Murphy’s Law Waiting to Happen (November 2018); and Crypto Resurrection (November 26, 2022). All were published in the Philippine Star, the leading daily newspaper in this country of 120 million people.

 

 In December 2022 New York Times columnist Paul Krugman finally came round to making the same assertion I made in print four years ago: Not just crypto, but blockchain itself, is BUNK, a complicated and demonstrably fragile way to perform a function — information storage — that is already reliably, easily, and cheaply performed with other devices (such as USBs, stand-alone hard drives, and paper). Read his column: New York Times December 2, 2022, Blockchains — What Are They Good For? Or mine, which takes the trouble to explain the argument: Philippine Star November 26, 2018, Bitcoins AND Blockchains — Murphy’s Law Waiting to Happen.

 

Plantation Bay's Reception Building: A Showcase

 

The following article first appeared in the Philippine Star, March 24, 2023. It is reprinted in my blog by permission of Manny Gonzalez.

Plantation Bay's Reception Building: A Showcase of Art, Architecture, and Engineering

The Reception Building of Plantation Bay is an original Filipino work of art and architecture. Its various elements recall significant parts of Philippine history & culture and convey a mixture of serious & playful messages that surprise and delight its visitors.

The main floor is elevated above an ancient sea bed, therefore resembling a house raft floating on a tranquil sea. The flooring material incorporates blocks of granite salvaged from ballasts used by ancient sailing ships from China.

The roof framing in verdigris steel was designed by Plantation Bay founder Manny Gonzalez, with load calculations performed by structural engineer Ramon Villarias. It recalls European train stations during the Golden Age when trains were the principal mode of tourist transportation.

GROWING UP FILIPINO 3 Book Launches and Talks 2023

 

Here is a summary of the GROWING UP FILIPINO 3 BOOK TALKS 2023 - 

To promote the young adult book GROWING UP FILIPINO 3: NEW STORIES FOR YOUNG ADULTS, the contributors and I did a series of book launches/talks in the Philippines and the United States.  Here are some pictures of those events. Many thanks to the University of Santo Tomas for publishing the Philippine edition of GUF3, and to the hosts of these programs. 

January 28, 2023 — Book Launch, Fully Booked BGC, 6 p.m. Readings by: Nikki Alfar, Cecilia Brainard, George Deoso, Yvette Fernandez, Patti Go, Sarge Lacuesta, Kannika Pena, Dom Sy, Jack Wigley, Danton Remoto. 

l-r: Sarge Lacuesta, Jack Wigley, Cecilia Brainard, Nikki Alfar, Danton Remoto, Ned Parfan, Dom Sy, George Deoso, Yvette Fernandez, Patty Go