Esquire 09/2013 Jessy Mendiola

PHILIPPINES

ADVERTISING FEATURE

TAG HEUER CARRERA THE FIRST 50 YEARS CARRERA, FROM 1963 TO NOW: ACCELERATED TECHNOLOGY AND DESIGN SAVOIR-FAIRE TIMELESS MOTOR-RACING PRESTIGE Speed, emotion, glamour: A half-century after its dramatic arrival on the motorracing scene, the iconic CARRERA, the ¿rst sports chronograph designed speci¿cally for professional drivers and sports-car enthusiasts, remains the standard-bearer of TAG Heuer’s unrivalled motorsports pedigree - a perfect synergy that began with Time of Trip (1911), the ¿rst car dashboard chronograph, and continues to this day through the brand’s ongoing partnerships with the best individuals and teams in driving disciplines around the world.

CARRERA: THE HISTORY In 1963, Jack Heuer, the man responsible for some of the most groundbreaking advances in sports timekeeping, turned his attention to the speci¿c needs of professional motor-racing drivers. A long-time fan of and participant in the sport, he knew exactly what was needed: a wide-open, easy-to-read dial and a shockresistant and waterproof case tough enough for even the most intense road wear.

He also had in mind the ideal inspiration: the “Carrera Panamericana Mexico Road Race”, the world’s most grueling open-road endurance competition. “I ¿rst heard about the Carrera from Pedro Rodriguez at the Twelve Hours of Sebring, where I was the Of¿cial Timekeeper. He and his brother Ricardo were two of the fastest, smartest and bravest endurance drivers of all time. To hear them talk of the Carrera, which our brand’s longtime friend Juan-Manuel Fangio had won in 1953, but which had been stopped in the 1955 after a number of fatalities, made my imagination soar. Just the sound of the name itself elegant, dynamic, easily pronounced in all languages and charged with emotion. I knew then that my new chronograph was the perfect tribute to this legend.”

He knew what the look and feel of the watch should be too. Inspiration came from a range of innovative ideas, including many from early 60s modernism - the geometric purity of Oscar Niemeyer’s new architecture, for

example, and the curving, sensual lines of an Eero Saarinen building or chair, and the clean, uncluttered aesthetics of Pop-Art. At the same time, the Carrera’s iconic design values are ¿rmly rooted in the enduring codes of motor sports, such as the black & white of vintage dashboard counters or the perforated leather gloves favored by Juan-Manuel Fangio and his contemporaries.

“I was excited by the new forms, materials and techniques just then coming into play. We were after something that took advantage of these, that was just as new and audacious, but at the same time sober, simple and motorsports-driven, stripped of all ornamentation, classic and timeless.” Jack Heuer.

The ¿rst Carrera chronograph was the stunning black and white “Panda” edition with tachymetre. An instant must-have watch of the top racecar drivers in Europe and America, it is now one of the most coveted watches among luxury watch collectors.

Then, in 1969, the patented Carrera Chronomatic Calibre 11, the world’s ¿rst automatic chronograph was unveiled, changing the course of watch design. The name - a combination of the words “Chronograph” and “Automatic”, is among the most fabled in Swiss watchmaking history. Equipped with a 12-hour and a 30-minute counter, and the famous oscillating pinion invented by Edouard Heuer in 1887, the chronograph was out¿tted with a special patented excentric regulator setting and moveable spiral block, which allowed for very precise regulation and the smallest error in the timing, even under the most extreme conditions.

During the 1970s “Quartz crisis”, the Carrera not only survived, it excelled, with a series of popular quartz editions that demonstrated the brand’s continued preeminence as a pioneer in the Digital Age. Among the star pilots to wear a Carrera over the next decade were Ferrari drivers Jackie Ickx, Clay Regazzoni, Mario Andretti, Carlos Reutemann and Jody Scheckter.

Every member of Ferrari’s 1970s ‘scuderia’, with whom Heuer had signed on as Of¿cial Sponsor and Timekeeper, received a solid gold Carrera engraved with his name and blood type.

Since, It has been worn by every TAG Heuer driving greats: David Coulthard, Kimi

Räikkönen, Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button, Alain Prost...

CARRERA: THE REBIRTH In 1996, TAG Heuer relaunched the iconic line with the TAG Heuer Carerra Chronograph.

The new Àagship of the brand is one of the bestselling timepiece’s in the brand’s history.

In 2004, two Automatics, the Carrera Tachymetre (41mm) and the steel-bracelet Carrera Watch, were added to the roster. In 2005, the Calibre 360 Concept Chronograph, the world’s ¿rst 1/100th of a second mechanical chronograph, was the talk of the BaselWorld watch fair. The following year, in a demonstration of TAG Heuer’s prowess at turning concepts into reality, the limited edition TAG Heuer Carrera Calibre 360 Rose Gold, was named “Sport’s Watch of the Year” at the Geneva Watchmaking Grand Prix.

In 2010, the Carrera was the obvious choice for a new breakthrough: the Calibre 1887, a chronograph movement 100% designed and assemble in-house at TAG Heuer’s Swiss workshops. Winner of the 2010 Geneva Grand Prix’s prestigious “La Petite Aiguille” award, the movement pays tribute to the original Heuer oscillating pinion of 1887, one of the brand’s ¿rst patents and a major benchmark in modern watchmaking.

In 2011, TAG Heuer added two new standouts to the legacy: the Carrera Heritage, a full line of sporty, vintage-inspired Carreras, and the groundbreaking Carrera Mikrograph, the world’s ¿rst chronograph displaying the 1/100th of a second on a sweeping central hand.

In 2012, the brand launched the TAG Heuer Carrera Mikrogirder, a dual-assortment, ultra high-frequency watch that beats 7.2 million times every hour and has a Àying central chronograph hand that rotates 20 times per second. This astounding machine - the ¿rst timepiece ever created with neither a balance wheel nor a hairspring, is accurate to an unprecedented 5/10,000 of a second. At the Geneva Watchmaking Grand Prix ceremonies in November 2012, it was singled out as the best overall watch in all categories, taking home the prestigious Aiguille d’Or, the most coveted distinction in the global watch industry.

Now, to mark the 50th year of the icon, TAG Heuer unveils its future.

CONTENTS SEPTEMBER 2013

VO L . 2 y N O. 1 1

20 EDITOR’S NOTE 24 ESQUIRE CONTRIBUTORS 36 FUNNY JOKE FROM A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN

as told by MARIANNA HENUD 27 ESQ&A

JESSICA HAGEDORN talks about noir, New York cops, and why Manila should revel in being called the “gates of hell” to LUIS KATIGBAK, and Manila Noir contributors ICHI BATACAN and SARGE LACUESTA. 38 MAHB: BOOKS

One hundred and twentyfive years of the mistress as a literary tradition is handpicked in this anthology of adulteries.

SASHA MARTINEZ reviews Querida.

40 MAHB: EAT LIKE A MAN

Start your day right by making your breakfast better. Some rules from ERWAN HEUSSAFF. 42 MAHB: DRINKING

Few local places are at the forefront of our cocktail awakening, ERWAN HEUSSAFF tells you where to find them.

44 MAHB: CARS

It doesn’t necessarily take an Italian screamer that costs as much as a house to blow you away. JASON DELA CRUZ and GERARD CASTILLO feed your need for speed on a budget, with these sports coupes under P2M.

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CONTENTS SEPTEMBER 2013

VO L . 2 y N O. 1 1

48 MAHB: DESIGN

MAWEN ONG shares her diary while in Milan during the biggest design fair in the world—the Salone Internazionale Del Mobile.

54 MAHB: SEX

How different is sex going to be after my wife has her baby? STACEY GRENROCK WOODS answers your sex questions.

56 MAHB: ART

JEROME GOMEZ takes you back into the heady and cutthroat auction wars at Salcedo Auctions.

A must-read before you start bidding on this month’s important art selections.

60 MAHB: MUSIC

CHRISTINA BARTGES or DJ Badkiss enumerates some of her personal favorite hip-hop songs from the ‘90s.

62 MAHB: A THOUSAND WORDS ABOUT OUR CULTURE

“For a national language is not simply a ‘working language’ or medium of communication between speakers of different regional languages; it is above all a medium of expression.” From lingua franca to national language by way of GEMINO ABAD. 67 STYLE

How to dress for golf; the modern brogue; and a peek into Gucci’s collaboration with Lapo Elkann.

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CONTENTS SEPTEMBER 2013

VO L . 2 y N O. 1 1

76 STYLE: GROOMING

You’re getting old. Your face slides south. The creases don’t go away. And now you’re getting worried. Read about CLIFFORD OLANDAY’s visit to the dermatologist.

84 HOW WE DRESS NOW: AN ORAL HISTORY

What defines style for the modern Filipino man? Seven influencers of local menswear retrace our style history, discussing the shifts in fit, colors and patterns from the ‘90s.

92 COVER STORY: SHORT STORIES ABOUT JESSY MENDIOLA

LUIS KATIGBAK writes 22 truths about the lovely young star of ABS-CBN’s Maria Mercedes.

101 ESQUIRE FICTION 2013

Eleven stories by eleven of our best writers including Eric Gamalinda, Jessica Hagedorn, Francezca Kwe, and Ian Rosales Casocot.

122 WHAT I’VE LEARNED

124 WHAT I’VE LEARNED

WOODY ALLEN talks about the importance of health, marriage, and why he still believes your life is very much out of your control.

ON THE COVER: JESSY MENDIOLA PHOTOGRAPHED EXCLUSIVELY FOR ESQUIRE BY BJ PASCUAL. STYLED BY LIZ UY. PRODUCED BY JEROME GOMEZ. ONE-PIECE SWIM SUIT BY BOOM SASON. MAKE UP BY KUSIE HO FOR SALON USING MAC COSMETICS. HAIR BY JOHN VALLE FOR L'OREAL PROFESSIONNEL

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W H I T E C A R D I G A N B Y S U I T E B L A N C O AT S M A U R A , S W I M S U I T B Y S E A F O L LY AT R U S TA N S M A K AT I

“I’ve been a gambler all my life. Not just figuratively, but literally.” BUTCH DALISAY talks to SARGE LACUESTA about gambling, writing, and being a homebody.

CONTENTS SEPTEMBER 2013

VO L . 2 y N O. 1 1

126 WHAT I’VE LEARNED

G. GARCÍA MARQUEZ thinks it is not important where he was born, but remembers vividly the illusion of the house where he lived.

128 DOWNRIVER

Navy, seersucker suits, and trench coats.

140 THE DARK SUIT RISES

When bold colors and loud clashes don’t suit the mood or the meeting, look to the awesome power and unsuspected surprises of the new wave of dark suiting.

146 ESQUIRE GUIDE TO CHILLING THE F**K OUT

How and why you should be meditating everyday. It sounds like glorified napping, until you learn that it makes you a healthier, happier person.

152 THE UNFINISHED REVOLUTION OF JOSE ALMONTE

MIA GONZALEZ spends time with the “sinister” former National Security Adviser, and finds that he actually has a deep-rooted Christian faith, and an indomitable love for country.

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SEPTEMBER 2013

Stories A NOTE FROM ERWIN ROMULO

IT IS ABOUT BELIEVING EVEN IN UNBELIEF AND KNOWING THAT FICTION SHOULD NEVER BE WITHOUT TRUTH.

20 E S Q U I R E S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3

There are many stories to tell. There are many ways of remembering.

In 2009, shortly before he died1, Alexis Tioseco appeared on a TV show alongside author Butch Dalisay and filmmaker/komiks writer Carlo J. Caparas. He had been asked to come on the show to give his thoughts on the controversy surrounding the announcement that Caparas along with three others (namely couturier Pitoy Moreno, architect Francisco Mañosa, and theater artist Cecile Guidote-Alvarez) were named by then-President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo as National Artists. The uproar that followed was largely due to the fact that the four were named despite the fact that none of their names were on the list put forward by the screening committees of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) and Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP)2. Among other things, Caparas argued his case by citing the box office sales of his movies as proof that he deserved the distinction. The host of the program, Cheche Lazaro, asked Alexis if in his view that was indeed enough to declare someone as a National Artist. He replied: “(I)f we were to measure our culture by the amount of people…we would have a lot more respect for the talents of Willie Revillame, for example, as a host. I don’t think we’re gonna give cultural awards to Wowowee…It’s probably one of the most watched television programs. But the question of quality of culture is not a question of the numbers…”

Already seething, Caparas went on a tirade against critics in general before turning specifically on Alexis, dismissing him as knowing nothing on account of his youth.

Alexis let this pass without further comment, letting only a slight hint of a smile curl on his lips as he turned his head away. He had said enough to make his case and managed to

keep his dignity even when confronted with such unreason. He had won.

That is the story I want to tell about Alexis.

That is how I want to remember him.

This issue is all about stories and storytellers. It is about the power of words and how they create images that move like movies in your head, making you discern a narrative where before there were only isolated glimpses. It is about believing even in unbelief and knowing that fiction should never be without truth. It is about the enjoyment of memories through the filter of the imagination and reliving them even more vividly.

It is also about the ones who allow us these visions, to see with eyes different if not just sharper than our own.

Ultimately it is about endings…

May yours be a happy one.

1

September 1, 2009

To this day, no one has been charged with the murder of Alexis and Nika Bohinc. The case may be cold but is not closed.

2

Ferdinand Marcos created...

the National Artist Award in 1972, the same year he declared Martial Law, and, much like everything else at the time, he did whatever he wanted and gave it to whomever he pleased.

After he was toppled from power in 1986, the new government led by Cory Aquino issued Republic Act No. 7356, creating the NCCA, and giving it the mandate to set guidelines for the issuance of the award. Although the power to proclaim individuals as National Artists remained solely with the President, it established a selection process by which it would be conferred. Like many presidents before her, GMA disregarded the process by adding names to the list but unlike her predecessors went even further by dropping one of the names put forward by the committee (that of composer Ramon Santos). This was unprecedented and would make sense only if we were in 1972 still. Her decision to name Caparas (yes, to single him out) however would still make no sense whatsoever, no matter the decade.

SEPTEMBER 2013 EDITOR IN CHIEF ASSOCIATE EDITOR FEATURES EDITOR

Erwin Romulo

Luis Katigbak D E P U T Y M A N A G I N G E D I T O R Jonty Cruz Audrey N. Carpio S E N I O R W R I T E R Jerome Gomez ART

ART DIRECTOR

Ces Olondriz A S S O C I A T E

ART DIRECTOR

Edric dela Rosa

FA SH ION FA SH ION DI R E C T OR

Raymond Gutierrez < 7 I > ? E D < ; 7 J K H ; I ; : ? J E H Clifford Olanday E D I T O R I A L A S S I S T A N T Kara Ortiga EDITORS AT LARGE

FA SH ION

Liz Uy < ; 7 J K H ; I Sarge Lacuesta, Ramon de Veyra GROUP CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Vince Uy CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

Jessica Zafra, Erik Matti, Tara FT Sering, Tad Ermitaño, Quark Henares, Mihk Vergara, Lou Albano, Gilbert Daroy F O O D A N D D R I N K S Erwan Heussaff B U S I N E S S Roel Landingin B O O K S Sasha Martinez CONTRIBUTORS

Germino Abad, Mia Gonzales, Ieth Inolino, Jason dela Cruz, Gerard Castillo, Maureen Ong, Eric Gamalinda, Jessica Hagedorn, Maria Carmen Sarmiento, Ian Casocot, Francezca Kwe, Carl Javier, Gabriela Lee, Marguerite Alcazaren de Leon, Nikki Alfar, Quark Henares, Reno Evangelista, Vanni de Sequera P H O T O G R A P H E R S BJ Pascual, Edric Chen, Jelito de Leon, Charles Buencosejo, Ian Castañas, Paul del Rosario, Ynigo Santos, Romain Rivierre I L L U S T R A T O R S Boizei Malicdem, Jo Aguilar WRITERS

HEA RST M AGA ZINES INTER NATIONA L

Duncan Edwards Senior Vice President, CFO and General Manager Simon Horne Senior Vice President/ Director of Licensing and Business Development Gautam Ranji Senior Vice President/International Publishing Director Jeannette Chang Senior Vice President/Editorial Director Kim St. Clair Bodden Creative Director Peter Yates Executive Editor: Tony Gervino Fashion and Entertainment Director Kristen Ingersoll Senior International Editions Editor Luis Veronese PR E SI DE N T/ C E O :

ESQUIRE INTERNATIONAL EDITIONS

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EDITORS IN CHIEF

President and General Manager

Lisa Y. Gokongwei-Cheng

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22 E S Q U I R E S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3

SEPTEMBER 2013

is the editor of Manila Noir. Her novels include Toxicology, Dream Jungle, The Gangster Of Love (which was nominated for the Irish Times International Fiction Prize), and Dogeaters (which was nominated for a National Book Award). Her poetry, plays and prose have been anthologized widely.

IAN ROSALES CASOCOT is a novelist and teaches film, literature, and creative writing in Silliman University in Dumaguete City. He has won several Palanca Awards and the FullyBooked/Neil Gaiman Philippine Graphic/Fiction Prize for his fiction. His books include Beautiful Accidents and Heartbreak & Magic.

ERIC GAMALINDA has published four novels, three poetry collections, and two collections of stories including People Are Strange, which was released

by Black Lawrence Press in 2012.

He teaches at the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race at Columbia University. Since 1994, he has lived in New York City.

MARIA CARMEN SARMIENTO In mid-life, Menchu Sarmiento is rebranding herself as a visual artist but her second collection of short fiction and essays, UKAY UKAY—Kuwentos & Discuentos (Anvil Publishing), will be out later this year.

FH BATACAN is a journal-

FRANCEZCA C. KWE is a

ist and crime fiction writer. Her short fiction has won Palanca and Free Press Awards, while her first novel, Smaller and Smaller Circles, has won the Palanca, the National Book Award (Philippines), and the Madrigal-Gonzales Best First Book Award. The book will be released in the US by Soho Press in 2014.

writer, editor, and teacher. She has won the Carlos Palanca Memorial Award and the Nick Joaquin Literary Award for her fiction.

She has published her short fiction in literary journals, including Asia and the Magazine of Asian Literature, among others. She is currently finishing her first novel.

MIA GONZALEZ Ma. Romina “Mia” M. Gonzalez is a Senior Reporter for the BusinessMirror, and has been chronicling the ins and outs and ups and downs of the Philippine government for various broadsheets since 1994. She has won several Palanca Awards for her fiction, and was a National Book Awards (Philippines) finalist in 2004 for her book, Welostit and Other Stories.

GÉMINO H. ABAD is a university Professor emeritus of literature and creative writing at the University of the Philippines, is a poet, fictionist, literary critic and historian, and anthologist with various honors and awards. In 2009 he received Italy’s Premio Feronia for his poetry. Care of Light (2010) is his eighth poetry collection, and Imagination’s Way (2010), his eighth collection of critical essays.

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M A R I A CA R M E N SA R M I E N TO’S P H OTO BY L AYA G E R LO C K

JESSICA HAGEDORN

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STYLEAGENDA

TAKE 10 FOR YOUR SKIN

SEPTEMBER 2013

ESQ&A:

JESSICA HAGEDORN

PHOTOGRAPHS BY EDRIC CHEN

The writer talks about noir, New York cops, Andrew Cunanan, the importance of crime fiction, and why Manila should revel in being called the “gates of hell” with Manila Noir contributors FH (Ichi) Batacan (with Esquire editors Sarge Lacuesta and Luis Katigbak in attendance).

ICHI BATACAN: I’m deep into “Toxicology” now, and one of the first things that struck me was the rhythm of the language—the dialogue, in particular, is very noir.

JESSICA HAGEDORN: Yeah, I’m loving lean and mean… The older and older I get, it’s like, pared away, pared away. (For Manila Noir), when it came time for me to contribute my own story, I rewrote that story so many times, almost to a fault.

CONT’D

S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3 E S Q U I R E 27

J E S S I C A H AG E D O R N C O N T ’ D

ST MAN AT HIS BE

ESQ+A

SARGE LACUESTA: So, can one rewrite to a fault?

JH: I think you can polish to perfection, and it’s not good. It’s almost like being an anorexic writer. Sometimes you need a little fat. A little fat in there makes it different. When I was younger, I was more into the lush kind of prose. But also it might be living in New York, `cause that’s the way people talk.

It’s about not wasting a second. I think that’s become my personality more and more. That’s why I love noir, because those writers tend to write that way.

IB: Are there characters you’ve written who have stayed with you well after you’ve written them?

JH: Oh, yeah. Sure. And readers too—they’ll say to me, “What happened to Joey Sands, why don’t you write another story with him?” And I often think, “What a great thing to do!”

There are these experimental writers who bring in their characters in other books they write, they’ll pop up again. The lady in my story in Manila Noir,

28 E S Q U I R E S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3

Dona Conching—in the story I submitted to Esquire, she’s kind of mentioned in passing. I fall in love with my characters.

Don’t you?

SL: Certainly you want to avoid that, right? I hate falling in love in the first place.

JH: Yeah, you spend so much time with them and they put you through hell. And when it’s satisfying you want to see them again.

SL: I think the danger there is for the character to slowly resemble the writer.

JH: For me it could be the other way around. I get so fascinated by whatever I’ve wrought, who’s not me, that the fun of it is.… I don’t wanna kill them off yet! So what happens if Joey grows up and moves to Raffles Hotel?

SL: So it’s an escapist thing.

JH: The word escape sounds like you’re running from something. I think the job is to empathize and become different characters. Otherwise, why are we writers? We keep creating, so it’s a way of prolonging the creation. I see it as entering into

THE WORD ESCAPE SOUNDS LIKE YOU’RE RUNNING FROM SOMETHING. I THINK THE JOB IS TO EMPATHIZE AND BECOME DIFFERENT CHARACTERS. different worlds.

LUIS KATIGBAK: I think it’s an impulse that probably too many writers try to suppress, out of fear of repeating themselves— like, returning to a character, you’re afraid of dipping into the same well too much.

JH: But not when they’re growing! Because reimagining them in different situations and in different phases of their lives isn’t repeating yourself. It’s a wonderful little device.

IB: Do you still surprise yourself with where a story goes?

JH: Always. I hope so. I look for that in everything. If I’m not surprised, I start to worry. That’s when you’re repeating yourself.

LK: When it just becomes an exercise.

JH: Yeah, “I’ve been down this road before…” You know you can write this kind of scene and you just keep going there `cause you’re comfortable with it and you’re not challenging yourself anymore. And all your characters are kind of predictable.

IB: I don’t wanna forget the experience you were talking about, with the New York cop.

JH: `Cause we were talking earlier about research, and how much fun it is and sometimes you get lost in the research. I don’t know if that happens to any of you.

IB: I tend to fall into that trap.

JH: When I was writing “Toxicology,” I said, I really need to know this terrain of what happens in the opening chapter (when a celebrity dies). And in New York the cop thing is so specific, how they handle picking up the body, and when it’s a celebrity who dies, how are they going to pick up the body. I did all the usual things, I wrote to the community relations officer at my precinct—never got a response. So I asked C O N T ’ D

J E S S I C A H AG E D O R N C O N T ’ D

one of my colleagues, an auxiliary cop. I said, “Marilyn, you gotta help me, I gotta interview a cop.” And she goes “Louie!”

He was a real New Yorker, from the Bronx, his father had been a cop. I took him to breakfast and I asked him all the questions.

And he really knew what he was talking about. I said, “Look, if it’s a celebrity that’s found dead, what happens?” And he goes, “Aaghh. A ceLEBrity.” So he talked me through it, and I had such a good time. And the fact that he ate steak and eggs—he was like a cliché!

LK: I’m not sure if I got this right or if the Internet lied to me, but did you write something about (Gianni Versace’s killer) Andrew Cunanan?

JH: Yeah.

LK: True crime?

tradition that didn’t exist.

IB: One of my friends, also a writer, read Manila Noir. And it struck him that there was kind of a gulf between the way the Fil-Am writers perceived the city versus the way the resident writers did. Did you feel that, or see that difference when you were going through the editing process?

all grown up—except for Lysley Tenorio who as a baby came to the US—but the others grew up here. So they are dealing with memory. And yes, they don’t live here now, so there probably is a marked thing. But I feel that’s something someone here would pick up on, not me. Did you feel that?

SL: Yeah.

JH: Wow. Hmmm. That’s a good, good question. I probably (long pause)… No, I wasn’t looking for that. I don’t like to think of those things when I’m in the middle of work. Ruel (de Vera) interviewed me earlier. One of the things he said was, “What I love about this book is the great mix of people who would never be in a collection together.”

And I said, “Really? Why not?”

That’s not even my intention, I just picked the stories I really loved. I wasn’t going, “If we put so and so next to so and so…”

I figured, “Lemme just scramble and go for what I like.” The Fil-Ams that were in there have

JH: You did? And did you, Luis?

What is it, a tone?

SL: It might be a tone. It also might be—I mean, Chari (Rosario) Lucero talked about that kind of thing (at the Manila Noir launch) because she’s not from Manila.

JH: Right, and how funny it was…

SL: That (her story in Manila Noir) started as a travelogue!

JH: Why would the narrator be describing …

SL: So in that sense, whatever you choose to focus on—that’s the tell… I think it adds to the burden of the writer. The problem is, and I think I saw this also with all the other reactions

I JUST PICKED THE STORIES I REALLY LOVED. I WASN’T GOING, “IF WE PUT SO AND SO NEXT TO SO AND SO…” JH: No, I fictionalized it. It was a very dark musical. But it’s not Andrew Cunanan. I didn’t want to stick to that arc—I was interested in exploring aspects of that character, but there’s a lot of it that I did use because that is a great story. He breaks your heart in a way. He was a scholarship student to this fancy private school in La Jolla, a very rich enclave of San Diego. So part of his craziness was, he was telling his classmates—he would have his father, the Filipino father, drop him off five blocks away, he didn’t want his classmates to see the car and he’d walk to school and pretend (he was rich). And he was a brilliant kid. And it’s always the potential of a brilliant kid that gets deranged… shame is an interesting thing to me. And the irony is, Versace also came from a poor… he took on all this palatial blah-blah because he wanted to create for himself a family

30 E S Q U I R E S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3

IS THE “GATES OF HELL” JUST A LITTLE SECTION OF THE BOOK? I JUST THINK WE SHOULD REVEL IN IT. “WELCOME TO THE GATES OF HELL!” about the book—some people drew a line between the writers who resided in the Philippines and the writers who were outside the Philippines. There’s a line because they’re too close to the material … there’s already a visceral reaction. He doesn’t live here, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about … And this is happening in the context of the “gates of hell” controversy.

JH: Now, because I refuse to read Dan Brown because he’s so bad—he’s just a dull writer.

He’s not even a writer, he’s like a—typist! Is the “gates of hell” just a little section of the book?

I just think we should revel in it.

“Welcome to the gates of hell!”

LK: Maybe you can go a bit more into the process of how you came to edit this book, the experience of putting it together.

JH: ‘Cause I was working alone without any assistance, I thought the smartest thing to do… there were writers I already knew I wanted to approach, and then I made a back-up list in case those writers said, “No, I can’t.” In terms of the writers who lived here, I wanted Butch Dalisay, `cause I love his work. I felt like, there’s a man who knows how to write a short story. But you can’t rely on just your contacts. I heard about your work (to Ichi) because I was talking to some friends… I said, go to the bookstore, look at the shelves. Who are the new people writing crime fiction?

Somehow Lucy (a friend) had heard about your book. This was like, a year ago, a year and a half ago? And the editing thing, which felt like forever, was actually a couple of hard-boiled months. And then they turned around and put out the book fast. I chose the folks C O N T ’ D

J E S S I C A H AG E D O R N C O N T ’ D

MAN

T S BES AT HI

ESQ

I really was excited about. What did I say to you about Budjette (Tan) and Kajo (Baldisimo)?

IB: You asked if I knew other writers who were writing crime fiction and I said, “You might want to check out this pair who are doing this phenomenal series of graphic, supernatural …”

JH: And I was like, Yeaaaahh.

IB: It’s funny, Budjette messaged me on Facebook this morning and said, “Look, look, I still have your message!” I Facebooked him in 2011. And I didn’t know him either.

JH: You didn’t know him, really?

IB: I hadn’t met him yet. I said, “I’m really sorry to be messaging you out of the blue, I know you don’t know me but blah blah blah. And could I give you (Jessica’s) email address and could I give her your email address?”

JH: While I was waiting on that transaction, I emailed (friends) and I said, “Go, get me these

32 E S Q U I R E S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3

+A

WE COULD ALL USE AN OUTSIDE EYE. I THINK IT’S THE CONFIDENCE TO KNOW THAT SOMEBODY’S THERE FOR YOU AND THAT’S WHY THEY’RE CRITIQUING IT, THEY’RE NOT ATTACKING YOU. guys’ (graphic novels).” And I’m a fan of that anyway, so I was super-excited. When you said that, I said, “Well, that’s what’s going to make this collection.

And how Filipino is that?!”

SL: That’s something (Hagedorn’s close editing of the stories in Manila Noir) that has never bled into our writing culture.

We produce a lot of anthologies… but I’ve never experienced it, where somebody solicits a story from me and they

actually get back to me and say, “It’s not working out.” So that’s the most valuable thing that I’m getting out of this.

JH: I actually look forward to, like, when my editor sits with me, if he doesn’t give me enough, I’m like, “Does he care?

Do you love me? Do you give a shit about my book?”

SL: You have experience about this, Ichi, right? With your own would-be publisher? They sort of lean into you?

IB: Juliet (Grames of Soho Press, NY) is going to line-edit.

JH: She came to one of the crime things I did in New York and introduced herself as her editor, so I said, “Yahoo!”

IB: I don’t have a very big ego about my work. Thirteen years in (Singapore) where people really don’t mince words and they’re like, “This isn’t working out”… So the prospect of being line-edited is really great for me, I’m really looking forward to it.

SL: But that doesn’t happen here.

JH: Is any editing happening at all?

SL: Grammatical.

IB: Spellcheck.

SL: That’s the big elephant in the room—is that affecting our writing?

JH: I think it does … thank God there’s a tradition of that in other cultures, not to look at it as a personal anything— SL: Or a political thing.

JH: It’s something that needs to be taught to writers here, that it’s not an attack on you.

SL: That’s, plain and simple, a lesson in humility.

JH: Confidence, I think. I don’t think it’s humility.

SL: Great point.

JH: Maybe it’s the confidence to be (humble). We could all use an outside eye. I think it’s the confidence to know that somebody’s there for you and that’s why they’re critiquing it, they’re not attacking you.

SL: There’s no (editing) industry here.

JH: Why can’t it be developed?

I think it could start in those

workshops where you have beginning writers, and you make that part of the process. Maybe more of us writers can talk about how we’re edited.

IB: There’s this writer who’s kind of articulating what other people have said in different ways, that the golden age of the great social novel is upon us, but the critical establishment is—I’m paraphrasing here—is failing to see it because it’s happening almost exclusively within the crime novel.

JH: I think there’s a great resurgence. Yes, it’s been ignored a long time, or it’s been relegated to this niche. But now, because there’s so much global interest in this type of fiction, there’s the slowly-dawning realization that, hey, the best stuff coming out of this so-called genre is really far above… But I’ve always kind of thought of it that way! I don’t think of the crime fiction I read as a guilty pleasure. Not one bit. When I read a good Elmore Leonard or whatever, I think it’s—literary. I teach him in my class so that my students will know how to write dialogue.

SL: Do you teach it as genre fiction?

JH: No. I just put him on my select readings along with (Roberto) Bolaño or whatever. And my students go, Elmore Leonard?? And I say, yeah, maybe he can teach you something about how people talk. He does it in an entertaining and fun way, but that’s hard to do! Until you can do that with such a light touch and still make that commentary, and still observe really beautifully, then you can’t say this is not—important.

SL: Depth is sort of a requirement of literature.

JH: Yes! SL: Because I just want to bring it to the level of writing that we have now, where, at writing workshops for beginning writers, we’ve noticed that the struggle is between writing a story that has no grammatical errors, where there is a plot, a setting—and a story that actual-

J E S S I C A H AG E D O R N C O N T ’ D

ly has depth. In any given workshop now, 30 per cent of the stories are set in Starbucks, 30 per cent are set in a hospital, 20 per cent are about a student worrying about making good in his exams, and (the rest) are about vampires, supernatural creatures and all that.

JH: These are university?

SL: Yes. And writers tell me it’s been so hard to talk about depth as a requirement.

JH: I am always surprised—even with my graduate students, I say, “Aren’t you making the connection between the books I’m having you read? And—I’m not just doing that to give you busywork! You’re supposed to be connecting the dots to the writing you’re doing in our workshop! That when I say, raise the stakes, you should know what I’m talking about by now— you’re 28 years old, you’re paying a lot of money to go to grad school, and you wanna be a writer?” I think some of the new young kids, too, they don’t know the difference between—and I think this is with the vampire stories—television writing, and writing. And I go “That’s very television of you!” This is gonna do very well in a sitcom, but that’s not deep.

SL: Or the SciFi Network.

JH: I think there is great science fiction. And a lot of great crime fiction—it’s profound, it’s beautifully written. But that’s not what they’re doing. They’re not doing William Gibson. In the US, a lot of the MFA-type writing is about “personal relationships.”

I’m terrible, I know: “Not another incest thing!” Like, “the trauma makes it deep.” No, it doesn’t.

LK: In the `80s, somebody wrote a critique of the then-fashionable Brat Pack novelists and determined that every one of these novels had the death of a parent as the central tragedy for the character— JH: Then they become heroin addicts!

IB: Butch (Dalisay) said something (at the launch), when asked what advice he had for as-

34 E S Q U I R E S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3

piring writers or young writers.

He said you have to have experienced a bit of pain, a bit of discomfort…

JH: To write noir, yes.

IB: I don’t know if it’s because many younger, aspiring writers—I’m not part of that world, but looking at it as an outsider, I imagine many have comfortable lives. I know some who don’t, but… some things that I see are produced from

CRIME IS JUST THE CATALYST FOR THIS TRAGEDY THAT WILL TEACH US ABOUT THE HUMAN CONDITION. that whole Starbucks School of Writing. (laughter) LK: Starbucks School of Writing!

SL: They should make an anthology!

JH: Well, that’s universal, and I think it’s about being young.

IB: One of the questions that I asked you via email was, should we be writing more crime fiction (here)? Because one of the

things people always ask me is, “There’s so much crime happening here every day, and people are sick of it, so why?”

LK: “Why don’t you write happy stories?”

SL: “Can we please have a happy ending?”

JH: I think it’s great fodder for great literature. Crime is just the catalyst for this tragedy that will teach us about the human condition. But it has to be

Akashic and they’d already said (yes)—and I thought (in a cartoon villain voice) “ha-ha-haha.”

SL: You talked about having written part of a novel. What happens to all that wasted time?

Because we waste a lot of time writing crap—it’s just sitting there and nothing’s happening.

JH: Of course not! You’re writing! The story that I gave you was what I took out of that nov-

done well. I’m not just promoting, everybody should write about, you know, graphic crime just because it sells books. But I think this culture has everything you could possibly want, those juxtapositions—it’s got such vibrance and such darkness and such light and such… complicated people. Which makes for the best writing! I went to the screening of Amigo in New York, and (writer-director) John Sayles said, “You know, the whole time I was in the Philippines—why aren’t they writing literary crime fiction here? It would be perfect!”

I was sitting there—I had already pitched Manila Noir to

el. I had written it differently, but I didn’t use it. I put it in a file and I called it “stuff.” It’s good stuff, it just didn’t belong there.

I tell my students, “Never throw stuff out. You will always use it.”

I think when you’re having one of those moments—“What the hell am I going to do next?”—I look in those files, because they can jumpstart something.

IB: Okay.

JH: So, this was good!

IB: Thank you.

JH: Thank you very much.

Who’s taking all this food home?

Manila Noir is available at National Bookstore.

BEST MAN AT HIS

* A FUNNY JOKE AS A TOLD BY UL BEAUTIF WOMAN

A S TO L D BY

MARIANNA HENUD

ABOUT THE JOKESTER: Before model Marianna Henud decided to set foot on the sands of the Philippines, she was gracing television screens in Brazil as a soap opera actress, and a contestant on Brazil’s Next Top Model. Since then, she’s been traveling the world—Japan, Singapore, China—dedicating her efforts to charity projects while pursuing her modeling career.

Aside from promoting Caridade, her non-profit organization that aims to raise awareness for charities through fashion, she is busy launching a new website called Fable, which will be a social network for charities and volunteers around the world. While 23 is an age where many are still trying to get the most out of life, Marianna has found inimitable happiness in giving back.

She describes a visit to a woman’s shelter in Alabang: “The girls there are so happy. It’s like you’re bringing to them a good moment in their lives. Sometimes you just need a smile, you know?” And looking at the one on her face, we could not agree more.—ARI DEL ROSARIO

cannot guarantee that this * Esquire joke will be funny to everyone.

36 E S Q U I R E S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3

P H OTO G R A P H BY Y Ñ I G O SA N TOS IJ O B ; : 8O A N G E L A A L A RC O N > 7 ? H 7 D : C 7 A ; K F 8O SA R I CA M P OS

No English dictionary has been able to adequately explain the difference between “complete” and “finished”.

So, I decided to ask my English teacher as a challenge.

Here is his astute answer: When you marry the right woman, you’re complete.

But, when you marry the wrong woman, you’re finished.

And when the right one catches you with the wrong one, you’re completely finished!

A LONG-NEEDED ANTHOLOGY OF LITERATURE ON THE ILLICIT MAKES FOR COMPLEX, CHARGED, SEXY READING

BEST MAN AT HIS

BOOKS

BY SASHA MARTINEZ

C

aroline S. Hau, Katrina

Tuvera, and Isabelita O. Reyes have assembled, in Querida, the definitive anthology—both a tribute and a meticulous study—of one hundred and twenty-five years of the mistress as a literary tradition. That is, and finally: A painstakingly curated collection of forty-two of the best pieces of Philippine literature about her (or, in that same tone: him, imagine?).

The illicit has always intrigued. And it’s favorite fodder, a not-so-guilty pleasure for us Filipinos—trained for centuries to assume prudishness, helped along with good ol’ Catholic guilt. We’ve raised the implicit to an art form; we feed our fondness for

open secrets. Amongst ourselves, we’ve constructed elaborate shorthand to refer to a scandalous tidbit, to a transgression, to all things forbidden-but-gotten-awaywith. It’s this admirably sly maneuvering around given constraints that makes for what is among the most ideal atmospheres for good literature on the illicit—complex, charged, often sexy, almost volatile reading—to thrive in. Some of our best writers have been taking advantage of this—and, thankfully, the editorial triumvirate of Hau, Tuvera, and Reyes has been paying close attention.

“A querida is defined by what she does, and with whom,” the introduction intones, with a nod to “the passion she kindles, the affection she commands,” before counting

the many ways the myriad guises of the mistress have appeared in our vocabulary, in our popular culture, even in our legislation. This erudite, tempered, and unrelentingly intelligent overview of the mistress— who she is, why we have made her who she is—as trope and as lifestyle, sets the stage for the diverse depictions that follow: from the trite and overwrought (a poem ends, “I drowned in the very wine of your lips!”) to simply shattering narratives.

What’s particularly devastating about Querida is how exemplary the collection is—the majority of the individual pieces make you thankful for their rediscovery, confirm your belief that there’s art out there that can remain unfalteringly brilliant. From Rizal’s contribution to the honorary trope of problematic trophy wife, to a reimagining of Rizal’s very own brush with history-upsetting scandal; from a shockingly explicit-for-its-time depiction of one proto-prostitute’s education, to your run-of-the-mill fascination with a sexy starlet turned on its head for maximum domestic disquiet. The poetry of Ricardo M. de Ungria stands out, perfectly crystallizing images in the drama infidelity is sure to arouse: Its women and their perplexities between one life and the next—a pause on the shared farewell beer with the man one ought to leave, and a light cast on the eavesdropper to a discovered adultery. Even oftanthologized works like Aida Rivera Ford’s The Chieftest Mourner and Kerima Polotan Tuvera’s pivotal love-quadrangle scene in her The Hand of the Enemy are granted new life, regally taking their place in the pantheon of other women and pieces-onthe-side and unhealthy fascinations.

It’s almost appalling how badly we’ve needed a book like this to exist. For one thing, it’s a survey of our literature through the ages—style, artistic movement, language, technique; for another, it’s an artful and diverse rundown of attitudes and judgments and what condemnations may come.

And it, too, is an over-a-century-spanning examination of love—illicit or otherwise.

And, of course, about lust—welling from desire and longing or boredom and spite.

And the many, almost ingenuous ways we confuse them all.

Even its title, simple but nearly scandalous in its straightforwardness—Catholic guilt, hello—is nothing short of brilliant: Querida. Querida, querida—querida. It could be anything from accusation to implicit invitation.

Querida is available at National Bookstore.

38 E S Q U I R E S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3

P H OTO G R A P H BY J E L I TO D E L EO N

ADULTERIES

will have the most exclusive browned crust.

MAN AT HIS BEST

E AT L I K E A MAN ERWAN HEUSSAFF

Q Bacon is 1mm thin: The bacon you grew up eating that’s way too crispy, greasy, and weighs about all of a gram is fake bacon, and you should put it down. Proper bacon is thick, juicy, and filling, you don’t need a heaped plate of it. Take some nice thick 20-30mm slabs and lay them out on a slotted baking tray. Turn up your oven to about 350 Fahrenheit and keep an eye on it while it crisps up and fills your kitchen with joy.

For something extra naughty, sprinkle a little bit of brown sugar on top.

Q Fruit salads shouldn’t stay in the ‘80s: It’s quite sad that fruit

HERE ARE THE NEW RULES FOR MAKING YOUR BREAKFASTS BETTER B Y E R WA N H E U S S A F F

T

here is always a start to everything. (Big surprise there.) More often than not what-

ever the beginning is will somehow define the continuation and the end. Yes, there may be some twists and turns that make the journey more interesting, or even situations that will change the outcome altogether, but the commencement will always be remembered and forever harness the power of impact and impression. Take the sunrise; there is nothing more poetic than the upcoming day, a dawn of something new, the fresh taste of possibility and the breeze of clarity.

You can toil around in the kitchen for hours, learning how to sous vide the perfect duck breast, while deconstructing or whisking up a hollandaise for dressing or braising the juiciest pulled pork for your sliders and homemade crunchy-yet-tart pickles, but if you don’t know how to make and put together a proper breakfast, the mother of all meals, your days will never be complete.

Breakfast is all about composition: some protein (eggs and bacon are the most popular), some kind of starch, fruits, and liquids; simple enough, so let’s make it more interesting.

Q Pancakes are not made in a cardboard box: People seem to

think that good pancakes come in pre-mixed powders. These people have forgotten that all it takes to make fluffy pancakes is 1 cup of flour, 1 tbsp of cornmeal, 1 tsp of baking powder, 1 tsp of baking soda, 1/8 tsp salt, 1 cup of buttermilk and 1 large farm egg. Mix all the ingredi-

ents together and add in some fruits, cheese or bacon in the batter to make it more interesting, and beat until still chunky.

Cook it in butter and enjoy.

Q Cast-iron skillets are as essential as coffee: Each time you

watch your grandmother cook in her vintage kitchen, wafting smells inebriate you with

promises of joy and squeals.

She always happens to have these black pans scattered around that make the food taste so much better. Yes, cook everything and anything in a cast-iron pan in the morning, have the smaller ones for your eggs with lots of oil, sear your bacon in the larger flatter shapes and your pancakes

Q Juicing is trending for a reason: Everyone seems to be talk-

ing about it, but people have been doing it for years already.

Juicing is a great way to boot your system in the morning.

It is also a great opportunity for you to get some vegetables in your diet from the get-go as well. Using your favourite juicer, use 1 small beet, 5 small carrots, 1 apple, extract and top off with some fresh mint sprigs.

I’LL BE OPENING A NEW BREAKFAST PLACE in Rockwell Powerplant this month. Hatch 22 Café & Bakery will have a proper take-away bakery area with all your favourite breads, some surprising pastries, take-away sandwiches and healthy juice options. All the coffee served is locally sourced and grinded. The Café area of the restaurant will have a wide selection of breakfast and brunch staples but with a twist. For lunch and at night Hatch 22 will be serving an array of market-fresh specials, family style meals and various light cocktails.

40 E S Q U I R E S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3

B R I A N H A G I WA R A

START ME UP

salads aren’t as popular as they once were. There is nothing more energizing than a big serving of mixed fruit and the taste of tangy juicy burst mixed with earthy fresh flavors. Start by dissolving some coconut sugar in some hot water, add in some chopped mint and let the mix cool down. Mix your same sized cubed pineapple, blueberries, strawberries, seedless grapes, and mangos together and pour the cool liquids on top of it through a sieve. Squeeze in the juice of three calamansis and some chilli flakes.

ERWAN HEUSSA FF

YOU KNOW THE CHEF, HOW ABOUT THE BARTENDER?

A GUIDE TO THE LOCAL PLACES AT THE FOREFRONT OF OUR COCKTAIL AWAKENING B Y E R WA N H E U S S A F F

I

tâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s funny, actually. When I ask

people why the whole world, all of a sudden, became so chef/ kitchen obsessedâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;with the TV shows, the cupcake wars, the rivalries and competitionsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;most of the time, the answer I get is: Because chefs create original dishes that you eat; the ingredients and the techniques momentarily become a part of you and make you dial in to all your senses. I do have to agree: eating, and more importantly, eating something that was prepared for you, is quite an intimate experience. Locally, diners are ďŹ nally getting more involved with their food and are always looking to see who the chef is, and with the rise of the mini-food-blogger, the process behind the conceptualization of the dish and the need to immortalize everything before it is even touched. Chefs and cooks are ďŹ nally claiming their place as the stars of the restaurants.

Using this same train of thought, you would think that the same would apply to the bartenders. However, in the Philip-

42 E S Q U I R E S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3

pines, I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t believe that the cocktail culture has grown enough yet for this to have happened organically. Currently we have restaurants that have cocktail lists (some of them really good), but the food still takes the cake, so to speak. We have hotel bars that do serve great cocktail programs, but they are usually too drawn out. Finally, we have all the bars, clubs and lounges in the country, and believe me, we have more than you think, but most of these are content with bottle service, cuba libres and beers. Now, there is nothing wrong with all of that, but I believe, just like with the food revolution, we are in the midst of a cocktail awakening.

We donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have many cocktail bars in our cities, but that doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t mean that we do not have talented bartenders. Filipinos are known to learn crafts and arts really quickly and absorb knowledge well. Because of these key characteristics and an expression of passion, we actually do have bartenders in all your favorite bars who really take pride in what they are doing and are looking for an inspired avenue where they can

WHERE TO DRINK The Long Bar 1 RafďŹ&#x201A;es Dr., Makati Avenue,Makati ~ The Blind Pig 227 Salcedo St., Legaspi Village, Makati ~ Exit Bar Corinthian Plaza, 121 Paseo de Roxas corner Legaspi St., Makati ~ Niner Ichi Nana The Globe Tower, 7th Ave. corner 32nd ave.,BGC, Taguig

SEAN MURPHY

MAN AT HIS BE ST

DRINKING

truly express their artisanal cocktails and their creativity. The problem is that bartenders are currently considered as being part of the â&#x20AC;&#x153;back of the houseâ&#x20AC;? when they are physically right in front of the guest.

The modern bartender is a specialist in his craft, a passionate individual who loves to read cocktail books, researches online for the latest liqueurs and infusion techniques, talks to his clients and regulars to ďŹ nd out what they truly like, and tweaks the recipes to ďŹ t their personas. They are proud of every drink they make, and can talk about them because they understand the interaction of all the intricate ďŹ&#x201A;avors in the glass.

There are a couple of places locally that are at the forefront of this movement, with their modern bartenders shaking away behind the countertop, expressing their art.

The Blind Pig has been open for a while and serves some Americana speakeasystyle drinks with strong assertive ďŹ&#x201A;avors.

Exit Bar at the Plaza CafĂŠ, also owned by the fellows of BP, has a menu with cocktails that are slightly lighter, less peaty but still pack a punch, in a dĂŠcor reminiscent of the glow of The Shining and an ambiance that would lull you into the proper buzz. The Long Bar at the RafďŹ&#x201A;es has a solid line of bartenders who love to discuss what they are making for you and who are willing to try and surprise with something a little bit more unexpected. There is also Niner Ichi Nana opening this month, a bar that will be specialising in Craft Cocktails and that focuses on the artisanal aspects of drinks.

The future is promising for us cocktail enthusiasts, but please, to all the producers out there, no one wants to see a Top Bartender Masters program on TV anytime soon.

CARS

REAL STEALS

BEST T HIS MAN A

CAR

S

it constantly breaking down. At the end of the day, it is a Toyota.

FEED YOUR NEED FOR SPEED WITH THESE SPORTS COUPES UNDER P2M

BY JASON A. DELA CRUZ AND GERARD JUDE CASTILLO

A

dmit it: you’re lusting

after a sports car.

Don’t be shy—this just shows that you’re one of the millions of men out there who long to own either a Ferrari, a Porsche, or any sexy twodoor steed that looks fast even while sitting still in the garage. But alas, reality creeps in: your wallet tells you that it is not a lampsummoned genie, but rather a folded piece of leather with definite limitations.

All is not lost, though. Check out these coupes: fun to look at and even more fun to drive, they make a good case for the idea that it doesn’t necessarily take an Italian screamer that costs as much as a house to blow you away.

TOYOTA 86

TOYOTA HAS THE ANSWER to your prayers in the form of the hot and sexy Toyota 86. Take one look at its body—

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with all the curves in all the right places.

The front fascia seems to taunt you with those menacing headlights and “snarling” airdam. The rear, meanwhile, takes a cue from its AE86 forebearer and turns it into a sexy romp. Then there’s that svelte side profile that won’t look out of place beside some of the world’s sexiest metal.

The Toyota 86, however, is more than just a pretty face. Get behind the wheel and you’ll know why we’ve been raving about it being a true sports car. Sure, it isn’t crazy fast; not with “just” 200 hp from a 2-liter 4-cylinder “boxer” engine (developed together with Subaru). Mated to either a 6-speed manual or an automatic gearbox with paddle shifters, each of those horses is let loose without a hitch. Beyond the numbers, however, the 86 is about experiencing true satisfaction when you tug at the steering wheel and the car follows where you point it, or stepping on the gopedal and getting an instant response. And this is a Toyota, mind you. You sure don’t get this with your father’s Camry.

Probably the best part about the Toyota 86 is that it can be yours for less than P2M. Starting at just P 1,550,000, you get all the rear-wheel drive sports car you’ll ever want. What’s even cooler is that you can use it every day with minimal compromises. And you don’t have to worry about

HONDA CR-Z

MENTION THE NAME HONDA, and gearheads will instantly think of those high-revving engines. It’s a brand that has been associated with performance.

Remember the Civic SiR? Still desirable even now, it managed to set the bar quite high. In the last number of years, though, they’ve embraced a new image—that of thinking green first, and setting aside the performance that speed freaks yearn for.

Purists consequently criticized the brand for becoming bland.

But he who laughs last laughs the hardest. Honda has combined sport with environment-friendly driving with their sport hybrid coupe, the CR-Z. It’s the successor to the CR-X, and clearly takes its sporty inspiration from it. It was introduced as a concept vehicle six years ago, with the production model released three years later.

And it’s finally here.

Those seeking a new toy will smile with this one. Inside, it maintains the feel of the CR-X—that familiar shape of the dash, short shifter and basic CARS CONTINUED

CARS CONTINUED

console combined with the high-tech look of Hondas today. The bucket seats are snug and the tiller invites you to grip it.

Any thought of blandness will disappear in here. A push of a button allows you to shift from Sport to Normal or Econ, which allows you to alter the car’s behavior to your liking. Sport mode utilizes the electric motor to provide more power while making throttle inputs more responsive. Econ makes use of the electric motor to save more fuel, while Normal is a combination of both. There’s a Plus Sport button that makes the throttle even more responsive and gives extra power.

The CR-Z is powered by a 1.5-liter i-VTEC engine and Honda’s Integrated Motor Assist System, which has a combined output of 134 horses for the manual and 133 for the automatic. It’s mated to a 6-speed manual (which we love) or a 7-speed Continuous Variable tranny with paddle shifters.

The CR-Z’s price ranges from P1,400,000 to P2,100,000. For the price, along with its driving dynamics, that’s quite a steal.

HYUNDAI GENESIS COUPE

IT’S FAIR TO SAY the Toyota 86/Subaru BRZ has been the center of attention the past year. Just like that, the Hyundai Genesis Coupe has become the challenger rather than the other way around. But

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credit where it’s due: It has had its own fan base for the past five years. The Gen Coupe offers Grand Touring performance, save the GT price tag.

There, folks, is how this coupe is best described—Grand Tourer. It’s based on the Genesis sedan, so it’s big. It’s quite a popular choice, especially in the US, where sizeable coupes have always been the thing. It’s meant to take on the Infiniti G37 Coupe. You also can’t deny the comparison with the Honda Accord Coupe. It even set its sights on the Chevrolet Camaro. Some balls, you’d say. With a 3.8-liter V6, the Genesis Coupe not only has the performance to match those cars, it undercuts them with a fair sticker price. That’s in America. Imagine that car here. Nothing comes close, at least with the price. The 3.8 V6 6-speed manual with Brembo brake package goes for P1,958,000 while the 8-speed automatic is P12,000 under the P2,000,000-mark. The Camaro V6 will set you back over P3,200,000.

The Genesis Coupe not only comes with massive displacement, it’s also offered with something that’s closer to the Filipino car enthusiast’s heart—a 2-liter turbo. Yes, the 2-liter engine is a magical thing for us Pinoys. There’s just something about it that we’ve been so accustomed to. Not to mention this one has a cheaper price range—P1,518,000 for the 6-speed manual, P1,818,000 with the Brembo brake package and P1,838,000 for the 8-speed automatic.

The turbo Gen Coupe is usually compared to the Mitsubishi Evo and Subaru STI, and its value is pretty impressive.

Cabin features will pamper you silly.

There’s an Infinity sound system and stitched leather everywhere. Two average-

sized adults can fit comfortably behind, making it a proper 2 + 2. It is, after all, a GT.

SUBARU BRZ

WANT THE TOYOTA 86 but don’t have the patience to wait in line for one? Or maybe you find the badge just a little too close for comfort to those Vios taxicabs that just keep popping up everywhere. Look no further than the Subaru BRZ. Essentially a twin of the 86, the BRZ was developed under a joint venture with Toyota, with the goal of coming up with a “back-to-basics” rear-wheel drive sports car that’s both affordable to own and maintain. In other words, you can drive these sports cars everyday—and look way cool, too.

Launched around five months after its Toyota kin entered the local motoring scene mid last year, the Subaru BRZ offers the same hot and stimulating looks of the 86. How to tell them apart? The BRZ has a “smiling” airdam, unlike the 86’s inverted “angry” lower grille. And there are the headlights that have LED strips and integrated turn indicators on the Subaru.

Plus, you don’t get the Toyota’s red patches on the seats and carbon-look dash—which is replaced by matte-silver on the Scooby’s control panel.

Apart from these minor differences, the Subaru offers the same goodness of its Toyota twin. Imagine having the heritage of Toyota’s great sports cars—such as the 2000GT and the AE86—and mixing it up with Subaru’s trademark horizontallyopposed 2-liter flat-4 “boxer” powerplant, which sits low, giving better handling. In plain English, this is a car that obeys your every command and essentially reminds you of the fun of driving. Sure, it may not be as fast as a Ferrari (with “only” 200 hp) or as high-tech as a Lamborghini, but you’ll be missing the point of owning a sports car if you don’t get that; it’s about the drive, baby!

So if you’re willing to ignore the P400,000 premium over the 86 (the BRZ goes for P1,950,000), then we say go for it.

Just like the 86, you’re getting one reasonably priced hell of a car.

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On this spread: just some of the Maniacal Mirrors, a study of our relationships with our reflections, displayed at the Temporary Museum for New Design.

IS BEST MAN AT H

DESIG

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INTERIOR MOTIVES

IN THE BIGGEST DESIGN FAIR IN THE WORLD, THE SALONE INTERNAZIONALE DEL MOBILE, ART IS MOVING FURNITURE DESIGN TO A FUTURE WHERE HOMES ARE THE NEW GALLERIES

BY M AW E N O N G

A

pril 10

APRIL 11

Off to the Salone de Mobile for work. The Salone de Mobile, or the

S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3 E S Q U I R E 49

CREDITS GO HERE

Arriving in Milan during the design fair week is like coming to a carnival, with too many sights and places fighting for one’s attention. But also there’s this exhilarating feeling of chancing upon things one hasn’t seen before. We decide to visit the Natuzzi SPA first, and Tom Dixon’s exhibit at the Museum of Science and Technology. Tom, who I have been honored to host during his Manila visit two years ago, never ceases to surprise me when it comes to new ideas. His “Rough and Smooth” show at the Museum of Science and Technology was indeed a treat to explore, as the designer played with contrasting textures in many of his new designs. The whole setup was unlike anything one has seen before.

He transformed a huge space into something akin to a warehouse, complete with freight boxes and conveyor belts—but with a posh pop-up café in the middle of it all, surrounded by both the rough wooden feel of the boxes as well as the smooth ultramarine blue that Tom Dixon seems to favor of late. It was a titillating sight, to say the least.

D E S I G N C O N T ’ D Rhofierra Milano, is where all the stellar designer brands gather and show the world their newest collections for the year, boasting changes in color scheme in each of their classic pieces to their newest designs for the year. Walking through the Salone is like walking through a theme park, as year after year brands showcase their creativity not just through new designs but also in how they create their corresponding exhibit spaces. This year, there were funky and retro color-themed vignettes to mirrors with optical illusions.

APRIL 12

Checked out the Moooi exhibit along Via Savone. The Temporary Museum of New Design by Superstudio Piu is where all the new and upcoming designers flock not just to display furniture, but also new inventions, and innovations on everyday objects. Zona Tortona is like a breath of fresh air compared to the main show that is the Salone. The kind of thrill one feels when walking into the unknown seeps into one’s bones as one strolls through the whole area, not knowing what new innovations await in the next corner.

At the Museo Bagatti Valsecchi, art and design curator Rosanna Orlandi incorporated her eclectic collection of design objects into the existing set-up of the museum. It is one of the few preserved house museums left in Europe that shares not just art but also a variety of collected design objects acquired by the Bagatti Valsecchi family beginning at the end of the 19th century.

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Clockwise from left: part of Tom Dixon’s exhibit at the Museum of Science and Technology called “Rough and Smooth” where he played with texture and also transformed a huge part of the space into a warehouse complete with racks, conveyor belts and fork lifts that show Dixon’s increasingly expanding product choices on their way to delivery—which then leads to a completely polished environment, the “Smooth” part; another detail of Dixon’s work; assembling Yuya Ushida’s expandable and retractable XXXX_Sofa, handmade chairs constructed like Lego bricks which can transform into a stool, a table or a bench; the XXXX_Sofa stools.

ADVERTISING FEATURE

THE READY SET Staying stylish is a 24/7 duty—and if you have the perfect pieces, you can transition from day to night without having to pause your game. G2000 has you covered with updated essentials from their AW2013 collection. Time to join the goodlooking club.

IT S IN THE HARDWARE WARE

ADD A PUNCH TO YOUR LBD S WITH A STATEMENT NECKLACE OR A SHINY BELT

UPDATE YOUR WORKWEAR REPERTOIRE

BY GETTING A SUIT JACKET WITH FRESH TRIMMING DETAILS.

A statement jacket can do wonders for your look—and confidence. This version of the Littlle Black Dress has slimming panel details—it s a must-add to your growing collection.

Basics need not be be boring: stick to classic cuts, but be on the lookout for updates in style and fabric when you shop.

WHEN WEARING A STATEMENT COLOR SUCH AS RED, LIMIT IT TO ONE ITEM OF CLOTHING.

A bow tie brings the look together. It s a trendy way to look polished and classy.

TO GET THE MOST OF OF Y YOUR DRESS SHIRTS, STO STOCK UP IN DARK HUES SUCH AS NAVY NAVY, EMERALD GREEN GREEN, AND CHARCOAL. G2000 s signature dress shirts are a closet staple—a classic color like navy can take you from boardroom to cocktails. In the AM, throw on a light colored blazer and you ll be sure to wow the clients. After the sun sets, a spiffy bow tie adds a cheeky element, and you re ready to charm the girls.

A crisp white n take top can om you from coffee to ls jjust ust cocktails ng by changing your bottoms.

DESIGN CONT’D

APRIL 13

Fritz Hansen, Orizonti and Magis, among other design brands, chose not to exhibit at the Salone this year, instead constructed their setups in their own stores at the Brera Design District at the Corso Garibaldi in Via Ponteccio. Meanwhile, at the Corso Como, the Droog show provided a fitting end to our Milan design field trip. Although we were already tired from the past three days of going around, we decided to push through with this visit, and it is a relief that it was not in vain. Droog showed an invigorating change in design direction with their innovative, quirky and at times humorous collection of furniture and objects.

Across the street, another pleasant surprise awaited courtesy of L’Eclettico, which was more focused on interior decoration and art installations compared to the home-focused Droog. L’Eclettico had a lot of pieces to offer that blurred the line between art and furniture, brilliantly keeping in step with where the rest of the world is going when it comes to designs for the home.

P H OTOS C O M P I L E D BY T H E AU T H O R

Clockwise from top: Softseating by Molo is all about furniture adjusting to spontaneous needs (when the magnetic ends are connected, the seat becomes a cylindrical stool); Softseating in black and gold; the BUFA amchair made of felt seating, from Landor Polska; Goodnight Tables

by Pega D&E, a Taiwanese design company, also serve as lamps and phone chargers; the Moooi table.

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out fail. You might also want to invest in one of the insertable biofeedback mechanisms available online. There’s one called Intensity that goes for about $150 and might not hurt too much when she throws it at you.

BEST MAN AT HIS

SEX

How worried should I be about this new “superstrain” of gonorrhea?

Eh, it’s pretty strong, but I wouldn’t call it “super.” I’ve certainly had better.

H041, which is what they’re calling the new strain until a name is selected (text your votes, everyone!), is simply the clap’s latest attempt to outsmart the antibiotics used to treat it. Gonorrhea does this all the time, which is how it stays relevant in an increasingly uncertain microbial landscape.

So far, it’s managed only one case in Japan in 2009, but unfortunately, there’s still no new drug to treat it. That’s because activity in what Dr. Robert Kirkcaldy of the Centers for Disease Control refers to as “the antibiotic pipeline” has slowed over the past decade. So until we can find this pipeline and reach in there and get the drugs out of it, I advise all my readers to stick to the mellower strains, use condoms (everywhere), and, when soliciting sex overseas, always check references.

Be prepared for more bibs, more vomit, about the same amount of diapers, and a lot more crying. At least that’s what I gather from the mommy blogs. Now, since you didn’t ask how sex will be different for her, I’ll assume you want to know how it will be different for you. That’s good—I’d hate to have to try to summarize the varied and endless psychological, social, and sexual affronts that your wife will experience through this black

. . . A N D OTHER T OP I C S

deed. You, on the other hand, might feel something like a mildly annoying bump. That’s because some degree of tearing usually occurs with a vaginal birth, and “if the woman had a lot of stitches that were put into that area, the man might feel knots or scar tissue,” says Dr. Brad Douglas, OB-GYN at St. Mary’s Hospital in Richmond. This can usually be remedied quickly and painlessly (for you) with a steroid injec-

Do homeless people cut their fingernails?

Yes, but they don’t do much with nail art.

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Will a chain lock really keep out an intruder?

Depends on how badly he wants to kill you.

tion. The other thing you might feel is the feeling of not feeling anything. Many experts in the field (thanks, guys, next round’s on me!) report that a woman’s body is a “whole new landscape” after giving birth, which I’m going to guess is more like a shifting sand dune than an active volcano. Kegels— pelvic-floor exercises, which you may Google at your leisure—can help tighten her back up, so long as she does about 200 a day with-

How do people with tattooed wedding rings show they are divorced?

Full amputation, according to Levitical law.

Got a sex question of your own?

E-mail it to us at sex@esquire.com.

Why is melted cheese so much better than unmelted cheese?

I don’t know, but it’s the same thing with heroin.

How many days after milk expires can I still drink it?

Sixty. Then you may have to strain it.

T O P : I L L U S T R AT I O N S B Y J O H N C U N E O

HOW DIFFERENT IS SEX GOING TO BE AFTER MY WIFE HAS HER BABY?

Some celebrity couples seem to think an open relationship makes a couple stronger. What do you think?

I don’t get paid to think—at least that’s what Kurt and Goldie keep telling me—but if I did, I’d think that open relationships are a bit like e-cigarettes: Good in theory, but they’ll make you look stupid at parties. Only the most level-headed, secure, forthright, and honorable celebrities should even attempt open relationships, because they’re the only ones who can afford to pay everyone off when things don’t work out, which they won’t, because they never do. (Come on, you knew that.) Still, if you think you can manipulate your wife into agreeing you should sleep with other people, and you feel certain you can get drunk enough to ignore whatever she chooses to do, then by all means, open your relationship to the public. Just make sure everything is up to code and the exits are clearly marked.

IS BEST MAN AT H

ART

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A HAPPENING NEAR SALCEDO PARK

WHAT’S IN A NAME? IN ART, AS ALWAYS, A WHOLE LOT. BEFORE YOU START BIDDING FOR THIS MONTH’S IMPORTANT PHILIPPINE ART SELECTIONS, WE TAKE YOU BACK TO LAST MARCH’S BATTLE ROYALE.

BY JEROME GOMEZ

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A rare colored Fernando Zobel from the 1950s called “Castilla IX” on the cover of last March’s catalogue. Left: Ventura’s “Till the Morning Comes” which sold for P12 million.

f you want to know which direc-

tion local art is going, and where it chooses to remain, then you must reserve yourself a seat or get invited to the “Important Philippine Art” auction this month at Salcedo Auctions. The bidding wars are expected to be heady and cutthroat—and very entertaining—if we are to judge by March’s unprecedented sale and the kind of buzz it generated. Auction proper started 10 minutes late to properly usher in the unexpected deluge of guests who were making their way into Salcedo’s newly acquired 180-square-meter space (which could fit 250), finished especially for the event.

“It’s crazy. It’s crazier than the international auctions,” says one collector and patron who was there. “The energy and anticipation was quite high,” a gallerist tells me. “It could have been a great art party, except there were no drinks.” One mover-and-shaker of the Manila art scene adds, “As soon as you enter, you felt the sizzle—of money ready to be spent.”

It was all that aficionados and art watchers could talk about for weeks. And why not? From the stories, it sounded like the art world’s equivalent of an important society soiree. The cast of characters represented all sorts, from experienced collectors itching to take out their checkbooks to neophytes trying to make their mark, from enterprising brokers to gallerists eager to gauge how good the art market really is at the moment—and to observe, of course, how collectors are spending and what they’re spending on. “It was a sight to behold,” a gallery-owner says. The showART CONTINUED biz crowd was there, too,

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ART ART CONTINUED

as well as name collectors (Manolo Lopez and his wife were in the crowd), and society staples, but the real active bidders were business people, especially from the local Chinese community, low-profile individuals who never appear in the pages of Town and Country. “As a regular of the gallery circuit, I recognized familiar faces. But on the whole, the crowd who came to bid did not consist of the kulturati,” says an art blogger. “If anybody hoped for bargains, you knew immediately you would not get it on this day. You felt the determination of the bidders.”

The first items up for bid were rare art coffee table books, but as soon as the first painting took centerstage, an Ang Kiukok oil-and-encaustic-on-board still life, tension and excitement filled the room as bids went beyond early expectations. The Geraldine Javier piece, a triptych that captured the development of the artist’s style from conceptual to artisanal, began at P180,000 and was sold at P1.4 million. Jose John Santos, already expected to do well in these things, still surprised the crowd when his oil-on-canvas work, originally pegged at P280,000, fetched more than P4 million.

The most thrilling part of the afternoon, of course, as you might have heard, was the battle for of an early work by auction superstar Ronald Ventura—a work from 2001 to be exact, a painting on a door panel of two human figures in fetal position, their backs against each other.

If you ask avid art observers, it’s an inferior Ventura, if compared to his more sophisticated works of the past few years. An easy point of reference would be the refinement and massive gestures in his most popular work, “Greyhound,” which sold for $1.1 million at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong in 2011, setting a new record for Asian art at auction. But everyone seems to want a Ventura on their walls these days, or want to be in the business of selling a Ventura. And so the really serious ones made sure they were holding a paddle at Salcedo that Saturday afternoon, or at least bidding on the phone with one of the auction house’s people. As soon as the piece, a commissioned work entitled “‘Till The Morning Comes,” was up for bidding, chaos ensued. Priced at an estimate P1.5 million, the bids quickly doubled, tripled. There were 15 to 20 people bidding for it in the beginning but when bidding reached the P5 million mark, half the paddles disappeared. It was finally sold at a record P12 million, the highest price ever achieved by the artist at auction in his home country.

58 E S Q U I R E S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3

“THE OLD COLLECTORS BID UP TO A CERTAIN LEVEL. EVEN PAULINO DIDN’T WIN! CAN YOU IMAGINE PAULINO NOT WINNING? And it wasn’t the eminent collector Paulino Que who won the bidding—a fact one broker seems eager to point out. Que, the dealer says, gave up halfway through the bidding. “The old collectors of today, they remember the price of how it was, so they bid up to a certain level. Even Paulino didn’t win!” He pauses. “Can you imagine Paulino not winning?”

This wasn’t always the case, says one who has been going to the three-year-old auction house. “Two years ago, nilalangaw ‘yung Salcedo Auctions, there were like six of us in the room. Every lot that’s unsold it was, like, ‘Awkward,’ you know? Now you should see it, it’s like packed with people!”

While our broker seems quick to judge the new buyers of art as mere victims desperate to jump on what’s hot in the art market, Richie Lerma would rather see them as patrons showing their confidence in the Philippine economy. “There’s that idea that if a country is going places internationally, then its art follows, “ says Lerma, who is consultant to Salcedo, and director

Jose John Santos’s “Looking Up” began at P180,000 and sold at P4 million. Right, Alcuaz’s “Bodegon en Azul, and the Salcedo auction space.

and chief curator of the Ateneo Art Gallery.

“When China was going to grow into this world power economically and other aspects, everybody was talking about Chinese art. And Chinese art was already reaching stratospheric levels, and I see the same thing happening to Philippine art as well.”

Of course, that auction was five months ago and much has happened in the economy since. Which should make this September’s sale all the more exciting to watch.

There’s a 1950s oil-and-encaustic Arturo Luz in the lineup, a 1963 Alcuaz, a 1980 “London period” BenCab. As of this writing, no contemporary names have been announced. But then that could just be Lerma and company trying to manage premature art buyer hysteria.

BADKISS’S BEST

CHRISTINA BARTGES, A.K.A BADKISS—DJ AND ‘MUSIC COLLECTOR’— CHOOSES THE 10 HIP HOP SONGS FROM THE ’90S THAT SHE PERSONALLY CONNECTED WITH THE MOST. HERE THEY ARE IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER.

T HIS BES MAN AT

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A S T O L D T O VA N N I D E S E Q U E R A

Erykah in this song. It’s a proper courtship, and she ain’t no cheap little piece of meat but a smart, stylish, sexy, badass, street-smart woman!

“Jazz (We’ve Got)”

by A Tribe Called Quest

Flowers in her bedroom, perfume on her neck / Nectar from a Mason jar, seven dollar dress / She’s super cute and plenty bad, thirty, twenty two, thirty six and a half / I hope the dude will realize she got the silky, sexy bedroom eyes

The album Low End Theory, which this track is from, came out at a time when gangsta rap was at the forefront of the hip hop movement. Then these kids in funny clothes with feelgood, soulful beats and positive messages came around.

The tranquility will make you unball your fist / For we put hip hop on a brand new twist / A brand new twist with a whole heap of mystic / So low-key that you probably missed it / And yet it’s so loud that it stands in the crowd / When the guy takes the beat, they bowed “Brain”

by Jungle Brothers

I love this song, not only the beautiful beat, soothing and serene, but also the message.

Everyone has some shit going on in their life—the struggle and the hustle—but that doesn’t have to make you hard and numb.

The time has come, for me to free my soul / Grab hold of my heart and take full control / Cause no matter what happens when times get hard / I still stand my ground and use the force of God “Plenty”

by Guru feat. Erykah Badu

This is so playful and sweet, and I always imagined I was

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Knew” is another gem. For me, this one is all about the beat! It is mesmerizing and hypnotic and beautiful! The song they sampled for the vocal chops is Patrice Rushen’s “Didn’t You Know.”

“You Got Me”

by The Roots

Back in the day when MTV actually played music instead of Reality TV, I saw the video clip for the first time. The best part for me is the last 30 seconds, where Questlove bursts into Drum ‘n’ Bass. Only later did I find out that it was not Erykah that had co-written the song, but a then unknown female musician from Philadelphia— Jill Scott.

“Drop”

by The Pharcyde

“Park Bench People”

by Freestyle Fellowship

Freestyle Fellowship didn’t break like De La Soul or ATCQ, but they too have their place in the golden era of hip hop. This particular song had a revival a few years back when jazz singer Jose James did a cover version.

“You Never Knew”

by Hieroglyphics

Hieroglyohics—the crew that Souls of Mischief are a part of. Of course, everyone knows “93 til Infinity,” but “You Never

The music video to this track is one of the dopest ever! The idea was so simple, and yet it just blew my mind. I would sit in front of the TV for hours just to see it again. Not to mention Jay Dee! He forever changed the world with his sound!

“Break Ups 2 Make Ups”

by Method Man

What a breakup song! Every man will in his life meet a woman like the one MM is rapping about. And if you don’t, you’re lucky never to have gone through that pain, but you’re seriously missing out on connecting with this song.

Ex-girlriend, how you been?

I see you still tryin to fuck with other women men, / Remember when I first met you in my cousin’s house, / A week later we was fuckin’ on your momma couch / Now it’s bees said that big girls they don’t cry but they damn sure lie / Look you in the eye, sayin you the only / You and I till the day we die, said you’d never leave me lonely, / Fly temderoni but you phony.

“Big Poppa”

by Notorious BIG

There’s just something so smooth and incredibly hot about what he says and how he says it. When he whispers in your ear you’ll be wet before long.

“Galaxies”

by Montain Brothers

This song just made it into the ’90s, being released in 1999.

It is a significant song for me because MB was one of the first Hip Hop groups of Asian heritage, which at that time was groundbreaking.

Check out more of Badkiss’s original music at www.soundcloud.com/missbadkiss.

Christina also frequently DJ’s at M Café in Makati.

BEST T HIS MAN A

A ND USA THO RDS O W UR UT O ABO TURE CUL

FROM LINGUA FRANCA TO NATIONAL LANGUAGE ON LITERATURE, LOVE, AND OUR SENSE OF COUNTRY

Language is my obses-

sion. When e.e. cummings speaks of the rain as having “such small hands… somewhere I have never travelled, gladly beyond experience,” I think, apart from the poem itself, of a paradox at the heart of communication and expression: that it may be we reap gladness of meaning only after we have passed beyond the experience, but that the words of any language have, like the rain, little grasp of it.

Our Constitution asserts that “Filipino is the national language,” but almost unsays it at once with (1) “As it evolves, it shall

62 E S Q U I R E S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3

be further developed and enriched on the basis of existing Philippine and other languages,” and (2) “for purposes of communication and instruction,” both English and Filipino are “the official languages … until otherwise provided by law.”

“National” and/or “official”—such is language’s chicanery; as to “basis,” the main one is Tagalog. And as to the law “providing” the reality—that is a legislator’s illusion. Our Constitution only contemplates an ideal that is perfected by action. Thus it recognizes the evolutionary nature of any language. A long time is, since we are short-lived, what we most resent. Yet time is language’s native element, and there the

rain falls to shape those fertile clods of our seeing. Such small hands indeed by which we take hold of that we call “our reality.”

From its basis or provenance, Manila Tagalog as lingua franca to Filipino as national language—that, it seems to me, is the evolutionary pace that our Constitution recognizes. As lingua franca, Tagalog is essentially oral, a linguistic chameleon differing from region to region in various “working” ways and evolving with rambunctious vigor in the street and marketplace, through mass media and the movies. It is what we have ready to tongue for simple and ordinary conversation, but its written A THOUSAND WORDS CONTINUED

© B e n H u p f e r/ C o r b i s

BY GÉMINO H. ABAD

BEST T HIS MAN A

form or literature will take much longer to evolve.

Nothing is ever wrong with a lingua franca; what may go wrong is only our attitude toward language whose chief legislators are really its speakers and, most especially, its writers—for so long as their readers then produce their literature and so create the standards and values of their language. Only than does a national language, inchoate in lingua franca, take on more definite shape.

For a national language is not simply a “working language” or medium of communication between speakers of different regional languages; it is above all a medium of expression. This is a crucial distinction. Communication is the community’s speech, its oral culture with little memory. Expression is the individual’s voice, somehow above language, for it first invents its words and then makes a clearing within the community’s language. I say, in-vent, because the writer finds his words, not in any dictionary but within himself as he lives his life in his community; thus, he gives form and voice to the community’s image and memory of itself.

It is the individual then who fathers his people’s literature; I should have said, its deepest letters. It isn’t language that gives rise to literature; it’s rather literature that forms a people’s tongue, the language of their blood. The genius of the language itself seeks out those whom it shall master; they in turn will write its masterpieces by which we learn to speak the language of our blood. Without a strong literature, there can be no national language; without that racial memory its literature secretes, no people endures.

FOR A NATIONAL LANGUAGE IS NOT SIMPLY A “WORKING LANGUAGE” OR MEDIUM OF COMMUNICATION BETWEEN SPEAKERS OF DIFFERENT REGIONAL LANGUAGES; IT IS ABOVE ALL A MEDIUM OF EXPRESSION. This is what most needs to be done— for writers to write their great works, and for our people to read them and create their literature. No legislation can make this happen, only love—but how does love for one’s country, pride in one’s regional culture, joy in the language of one’s childhood, come about? … Yet that love must move our writers and their readers.

64 E S Q U I R E S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3

CHANGE OR DIE. Language evolves; however, “language’s evolution has no respect for nationalist deadlines.”

In the 12th century, says the poet William Durbin, “Latin began to break up as the language of Europe [and] a new language grew up—a Latin of the place—the vernacular. This new language became so individual that people had trouble talking even with people from the next town down the road.

But the poets put together a style built on the old Latin but also adjusted to the vernacular which had the freshness of the local places.” And so, through the great poets, Dante, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Goethe, there came about those national languages.

I see no other route for Filipino arising over time from Tagalog as the lingua franca adjusted to the local places. Every short cut would only be a short circuit. Gradually, then, without definite time-frame, for language’s evolution has no respect for nationalist deadlines; and without coercion, for freedom itself is language’s joie de vivre.

It would be silly to jettison any language— in our case, Spanish and English; in fact, our Philippine languages have assimilated and recolonized them. Our college graduates too must have more than a rain’s hold on English; they must travel gladly beyond the island of their experience.

We must deal with Tagalog-Filipino both as medium of communication and medium of expression. Communication, for we need to understand each other across the straits of our diverse cultures and speeches; expression, for we need to make clearings within our accepted ways of feeling and customary habits of perception. Where the written word as forger and shaper of our perception and sensibility becomes our scripture, there our writers create our sense of country. For one’s country is what one’s imagination owes its allegiance to.

MARK HOOPER

A THOUSAND WORDS CONTINUED

A ND USA THO RDS WO UR UT O ABO TURE CUL

Lumen Suede Boot

SEPT 2013

Cardell Calfskin Boot

BOSS BROGUE BOOTS

The brogue has come a long way from its bog-sloshing days when hardworking countryfolk wore hole-riddled shoes to manage water-logged farms.

Years later, those functional holes, the brogue’s hallmark, have evolved into shallow perforations, little details that turn the basic cap toe or oxford into something more special. For its latest collection, Hugo Boss uses the broguing technique to inject Brit elegance into pave-pounding boots. In a ruddy calfskin or a cloudy suede, these can go with tan chinos or extra dark jeans. Wear everywhere—except the bog. Greenbelt 5, Rustan’s Shangri-La, Shangri-La Plaza Mall, and Newport Mall.

W O R D S A N D S T Y L I N G B Y C L I F F O R D O L A N D AY F > E J E = H 7 F > I 8 O P A U L D E L R O S A R I O I > E E J 7 I I ? I J7 D J I E D R I C D E L A R O S A A N D K A R A O R T I G A I N T E R N S A N TO N M I R A N DA A N D A R I D E L ROSA R I O

S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3 E S Q U I R E 67

How to Dress for

Golf 2

THE ENDORSEMENT

THE GOLF SHOE THAT DOESN’T LOOK LIKE A GOLF SHOE

1

3

1. TRADITIONAL: Less Ted Knight in Caddyshack and more Arnold Palmer in the ’60s. Leather wing tips, an

understated polo, and conservative chinos form a solid foundation, and an unexpected twist, like a brightly colored V-neck or cardigan sweater, will help you stand out. Wool sweater by Dunning Golf; cotton-and-polyester polo shirt and polyester golf pants by Maide; leather golf shoes by Allen Edmonds Honors Golf Collection.

2. SPORTY: Light, bright, and streamlined options take away any hint of stuffiness, and given the stretch and cooling properties of next-generation fabrics (like the polyester in this polo shirt), you can find a great fit that won’t slow down your swing. Polyester polo shirt by Dunning Golf; polyester golf pants by J. Lindeberg; hybrid golf shoes by Ecco.

3. “WOW. NICE PANTS”: Nobody wants to be the a-hole throwing off everyone’s game in Technicolor plaid, but a little bit of pattern and color can go a long way. (Eighteen holes, to be exact.) No neon, no polka dots, and no wearing anything you wouldn’t want photographed for posterity. Polyester-blend pullover by Dunning Golf; cotton piqué polo shirt by Boast; polyester-blend shorts by Boss Green; leather golf shoes by FootJoy.

THE COMMENT

We’ve got nothing against sneakers around here. Honest. But when you start talking about wearing sneakers with tailored suits, as so many men have started doing in the artsier areas of cities and towns around the world (see: Guglielmo Miani, right, the Milan-based CEO of luxury-tailoring operation Larusmi-

68 E S Q U I R E S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3

SUIT

NO SUIT

THE SNEAKER SITUATION ani), we need to establish some ground rules: Nothing too bright. No gaudy air pockets or superthick soles. And nothing that distracts from the obvious care you’ve taken with the tailored clothing you’re wearing above the ankle. From left: Asics; New Balance; Nike; Converse; Billy Reid for K-Swiss.

YES, THIS IS A GOLF SHOE. NO, IT DOESN’T LOOK LIKE A GOLF SHOE. YES, THIS IS A GOOD THING. ECCO HAS TRADED IN STANDARD SPIKY CLEATS FOR SPECIAL TRACTION SOLES (GREAT FOR GRIPPING TURF) WHILE OPTING FOR A MORE SNEAKERLIKE SHAPE AND FEEL. IT DELIVERS EQUAL PARTS PERFORMANCE AND STYLE FROM YOUR HOUSE TO THE CLUBHOUSE. BIOM HYBRID GOLF SHOE BY ECCO.

SUNGLASSES

Outdoorsin’ can be a bitch on eyewear, so leave your precious-metal aviators at home and opt for performance-engineered sunglasses. Features like floatable plastic frames, glare-reducing polarized lenses, and sun-blocking wraparound contours will stand up to blinding sunlight, choppy waters, and the occasional drop on the ground. From top: Hard Kore by Kaenon; Wave by Julbo; Racer-America’s Cup Edition by TAG Heuer.

T H E A N N I V E R S A RY

NAUTICA TURNS 30 THE ESSENTIAL

The Fossil Breaker Dive Watch

Style Rule Number 646: Reliable is underrated. Sharp is great, and stylish is a fine and noble goal, but if what you’re wearing isn’t reliable, then you might as well stay home in your sweatpants. That goes double when you’re talking about a diving watch, i.e., the thing that can mean the difference between making it to the surface with oxygen to spare and . . . not. Fossil knows this, having made reliable its watchword for more than a quarter century—part of the reason, no doubt, why luxury brands like Burberry and Emporio Armani have turned to Fossil to make watches under their name—and for its first foray underwater, Fossil is focusing on affordable, dependable functionality. Water-resistance to 200 meters, a screwdown crown for added durability, superluminous watch hands, a 360 degree unidirectional top ring: All come together in one midsize 45mm case with three interchangeable bands—nylon, rubber, and stainless steel. A reliable companion for wherever adventure takes you. What more does a man need? Steel limited-edition Breaker dive watch by Fossil.

70 E S Q U I R E S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3

IN ADDITION TO INTRODUCING THE WORLD TO MILA KUNIS, THE INTERNET, AND THE CHICKEN MCNUGGET, 1983 SAW THE BIRTH OF NAUTICA’S TECHNICAL-MEETS-TRADITIONAL SAILING AESTHETIC. THREE DECADES AND ONE GLOBAL EXPANSION LATER, THE BRAND HAS RELEASED A CAPSULE COLLECTION OF HERITAGE-STEEPED SAILING GEAR. GOOD FOR ANOTHER 30 YEARS. POLYESTER WINDBREAKER, COTTONAND-POLYESTER POLO SHIRT, AND COTTON-AND-NYLON SHORTS BY NAUTICA.

THE QUESTION

IS THAT A PAJAMA SHIRT?

SURE IS. AND A GREAT MANY DESIGNERS ARE RE-IMAGINING THIS BEDTIME STAPLE AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO BASIC BUTTON-DOWNS. WITH THE UNSTRUCTURED COLLAR, THE SUBTLE PATTERN, AND THE PIPING ALONG THE EDGE, IT ADDS A RELAXED FEEL TO WHATEVER ELSE YOU’RE WEARING. COTTON SHIRT AND COTTONAND-LINEN JACKET BY MICHAEL BASTIAN.

NEW LEATHER

Tod’s F/W Collection Here’s an easy way to capture that elusive Italian sprezzatura. Put on this brogue-double monkstrapkiltie hybrid from Tod’s. The maker of the gommino shoes, the iconic driving loafer with 133 rubber pebbles on its sole, tweaks several classics to create, for example, a cap toe detailed with mountaineering clasps. Roll up your cuffs for a slick sprezzy look or leave them untouched for a formal appearance. Shoes from Sartorial Touch, a collection within the collection, exemplify the house’s mastery of handcraftsmanship. Through an elaborate polishing process, vitello nuvolato leather is given a burnished brilliance, a highly nuanced patina. No two pieces are ever alike. The embossing of initials makes the shoes even more unique. But this service is only available in its flagship store, where a made-to-order experience is accessed through a new concept, a sort-of gentlemen’s club, the best place to get sprezzed out. Greenbelt 4 and Shangri-La Plaza Mall.

VISUAL GUIDE

The World of Hermès (as told through scarves)

Tampon Graphique A herd of horses

Missing Horse They’re gone!

72 E S Q U I R E S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3

Clic Clac A Pois Blinders, whips, rings, pommels

Carre Cube Cubes in squares in cubes

Maillons de Joel Stein Spiral of links

Balles de Golf II Fore!

Global Style, Filipino Spirit.

Discover page after page of inspired spaces and décor in ELLE Decoration Philippines, the locally produced edition of the world’s leading homes magazine.

FACEBOOK:

ELLE Decoration Philippines

INSTAGRAM, TWITTER, PINTEREST:

@elledecoph

TRY THIS

JIMMY CHOO SHOES

The early ‘80s, a buzzy time in New York. Basquiat, Warhol, and Clemente hung out at Mr. Chow’s.

New wave tinged with glam rock and punk upended the conventions of dress. For the fall/winter collection of Jimmy Choo, creative directors Sandra Choi and Simon Holloway tap into the preppymilitary-street styles of the era to create highly detailed and super confident footwear. There are wild creations, which, maybe, should be left to the sartorially advanced.

And then, there are pieces that posses just enough brio, like loafers that riff on the classic kiltie style, or pennies made bolder with a neon blue brush-on patina. Wear these. Greenbelt 4.

WEAR

THE CELEBRATION

Lacoste’s 80th Year

Suede Degrade

This is how a French octogenarian parties: To celebrate its 80th anniversary, Lacoste invited nine

French houses, from Baccarat to Veuve Cliquot, to create fantasy pieces for, well, itself. From luxe label Hermès, this tennis bag, which renders the traditional sport satchel in damn fine croc. It’s also a wink to the apparel giant’s legend. Offering a suitcase made of crocodile skin as prize, René Lacoste bet he’d win a tennis match he was about to play. The champ did. He was given the nickname “The Crocodile” and, soon after, the green reptile appeared on his polo shirts.

Suede and Leather

FIVE MORE GIFTS FOR THE CROC Neon Brushed

Travel bag Goyard

Lighter S.T. Dupont

Tees Bernardaud

Brooch Boucheron

Trolley Veuve Clicquot

Jumbo Tassels

THE DETAIL

BOLD PATTERN

Just look at these guys in their badass rigs. Lots of designers are rediscovering bold patterns this season. Tommy Hilfiger updates heritage prints like the Prince of Wales checks by pumping up scale and rendering the pattern in today's slimmer proportions. Greenbelt 5, Rustan’s Makati, Shangri-La Plaza Mall, Newport Mall, and Abreeza Davao.

74 E S Q U I R E S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3

Military Patent

Crazy Paisley WILD

THE COLL ABORATION

GUCCI X LAPO ELKANN

AND INTRODUCING

G2000

Lapo’s Wardrobe, a made-to-measure capsule collection by Gucci and Lapo Elkann, the heir to the Fiat empire and wearer of massive jacket lapels, marries the tradition and precision of the Italian clothesmaker with the eccentricity and bravura of the 35-year-old rake. Expect a high degree of customization, starting with two silhouettes, single-breasted suits with rounded shoulders and double-breasted options with equestrian detailing, and over 80 luxurious textiles such as tartan wool, cashmere corduroy, and herringbone tweed. Then, there are the details

like the jacket lining. Choose from a selection of printed silks with never-before-reproduced patterns from the Gucci archive: whimsical and colorful designs outlining feathers or horse saddles.

The princely wardrobe includes everything a man needs: suspenders, ties, scarves, cufflinks, jewelry, shoes, luggage, and more. So while you can't be a globe-trotting, supermodel-dating bachelor like Elkann, you can wear his clothes.

Gucci boutiques in Milan, London, Paris, New York, Tokyo, and Sao Paulo.

NOW AVAIL ABLE

RIVIERAS LEISURE SHOE

The leisure shoe worn on Spain’s celebrated Costa Blanca has been faithfully redesigned to keep its distinctive ‘50s look. Made of mailed cotton and canvas, with a leather inner sole and terrycloth lining, these slip-ons are perfect for sticky-hot weekends in the city, by the poolside, at the country, or near the sea. Backstage, Serendra.

“Black suit. This shirt. In sixteen colors.” That's Michael Tien’s recommendation for the workingman.

Since establishing fashion retailer G2000, the founder of the Hong Kong-based brand has not worn anything other than his own. The Philippines is the latest market in G2000's network, which includes locations in China, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, among others. G2000 opened its flagship store at the Shangri-La Plaza Mall recently and will have two new locations to follow this year. “We want to be the apparel market leader in any market we enter. That’s why we’ve waited all these years to come to the Philippines,” he remarks. Tien positions the brand as a primary satisfier for the ever-growing workwear market. With over 30 years in the industry, he knows how a man’s first decade at work meant looking for quality clothes at modest prices. Thus, the retailer sticks to a well-tailored business wardrobe with a clean and sharp look, an aesthetic that has remained consistent throughout the years. This measure of control is what keeps the brand popular. As Tien puts it, “it’s knowing our boundaries and knowing what should be ours and what should not” that has kept the brand on top. But though its taste's remains classic, G2000 still applies subtle but effective innovations like new fabrics. That basic cable shirt he refers to, for example, has “a cotton feel, but you don’t need to iron it.”

—SAM WONG

S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3 E S Q U I R E 75

SAVING FACE

YOU GET OLD. YOUR FACE SLIDES SOUTH. CREASES DON’T MELT AWAY WHEN YOU UNFROWN OR UN-LAUGH. THE VARNISH OF YOUTH DISAPPEARS. IN YOUR 20S, YOU DIDN’T MIND THE FURROWS OF WORRY OR EXCESS. BUT NOW, IN YOUR 40S, 50S, OR 60S, WHEN A HANGDOG EXPRESSION HAS BECOME YOUR CALLING CARD, YOU DECIDE TO TAKE CARE OF BUSINESS.

BY CLIFFORD OLANDAY

There has been a shift in the way Filipino men think. They are

more aware about the way they look. They pay attention to clothes. They work out. They eat right. They are also submitting themselves to the critical gaze of the dermatologist. “It’s interesting,” says Dr. Windie Villarica Hyano of The Skin Inc. “When guys go here, they know what they want.” They want to soften lines, get rid of scars, or even out patchy skin. They look for youth. “But I have to explain that aging is a three-dimensional process. It’s not just the skin that changes as a person gets older,” says Dr. Hyano.

Fat re-drapes. Muscles change in size and shape. Bones become smaller. To fix the surface, you have to go underneath.

LIFT IT

Consider the laser. There was old-school ablative resurfacing.

Lasers zapped wrinkles and holes away, along with a layer of skin, until you achieved smoothness. It's like leveling your skin by nuking it. Did it hurt? Hell yeah. Patients dealt with a week of wound care and problems like infection or scarring. Then, there was nonablative resurfacing. Lasers left the outer layer of skin intact. The recovery was quick, but the process slow. Even if you've had several treatments, it looked as if nothing happened.

Dr. Hyano recommends the fractional laser, a happy medium—and the leading laser technology today—that works beneath the skin to stimulate the synthesis of collagen without obliterating what's on top. “What you’re doing is putting a controlled level of injury...enough Doc! Do men get to trigger your body to regenerate [new tissue],” Botox? “Of course!

Botox is fantastic. It she explains. will change your life.”

Her clinic uses the Palomar StarLux 500, a How old are the men multi-platform device that delivers tiny beams of that get it? “It varies, but they’re starting laser, which can penetrate much deeper into the younger and youngskin, and at the deepest levels, keep its integrity. er.” The youngest?

The doctor (only doctors administer the proce“Their 20s.” Why do 20-somethings need dure) places the flat end of a thick wand on your Botox? “Well, if a line face. This feels cold. When the laser is deployed, is starting to show...” you feel something similar to the snap of a rubIs Botox the only way to conquer wrinkles? ber band. That snappy feeling, a quick pinch, is “That’s the only way repeated over and over again as the doctor goes that works.” What over the breadth and length of your face. about all these antiwrinkle stuff? “They It is over before you know it. Your face feels work as moisturizers. hot and looks scary red. Icy packs are used to The pathology is the dial down the heat. Then, you are placed under a muscle, not the skin.

You have to stop the special light (beneath a cool-looking clear orange muscle from moving, mask) to take away some of the color. There is a by injecting Botox in tight feeling and a bit of redness afterward. How certain areas of the face, so you don’t get long these last varies from person to person. It wrinkles.” How do can run up to four days or vanish in a couple of you make it not look hours. You can talk to someone an hour later, and weird? “Put in the right amount.” What else? all he'll notice is your flushed face.

“Don’t be shy. Ask your After two weeks, the effects rise to the surdoctor about what’s face. You can't really put your finger on it, says going on. Tell her what you like and what you the doctor, but here's what happens: The skin don’t like. Otherwise, acquires a finer texture and a more even tone. you may not like the Because there is more collagen, there is a little results.” lift, too. You can stop there. “But if you’re going for gold, do it every month,” says Dr. Hyano. Do five successive treatments, she recommends, and see if you want to go further.

Beyond that lies the promise of perfect skin. +632 853 30 24, Tritan Plaza Building, Paseo de Magallanes, Magallanes Village, Makati

It takes around 1,000 shots of bipolar radio frequency and infrared light energy to nudge things up. ReFirme at For Men harnesses electro-optical synergy (ELOS) technology, which, explains Dr. Shyla Samson-Valdez, diplomate of the Philippine Dermatological Society and dermatologist at Facial Care Centre, “delivers heat to the dermis and, in turn, stimulates collagen contraction, tightening the skin.” That's how it works. Here's how it's done. You are lying down. Cool gel is applied on your face to protect it from the heat of the hand-held, scanner-like device of the ELOS machine. It won’t hurt, coos the therapist. In fact, you don’t feel a thing as she moves the apparatus around your face, pressing it on your cheeks, jowls, and forehead and around your eyes. Zip. Zap. Zip. The waves are invisible. You drift off. Forty-five minutes later, the goo is wiped off, and, as the doctor puts it, you see an immediate “lifting of the treated skin.” Aside from improved definition (your jaw returns), the collagen stimulation also softens cragginess (acne scars and enlarged pores). The doctor recommends five or more sessions for best results. After that, the lift may last about six to eight months. Of note, there is no downtime. You can jump into your routine right away. Work. Golf. More work. Just remember to apply sunscreen. Adds Dr. Samson-Valdez, “There is no trace that you underwent treatment, but you'll definitely look much better.” It's as if you just came back from vacation. www.formen.com.ph

76 E S Q U I R E S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3

P H OTO G R A P H : JAST RO N . G I F T O F D É S I R É C H A R N AY 1 882; O N D E P OS I T F RO M T H E M U S É U M N AŤ I O N A L D' H I STO R I E N AT U R E L L E / M U S É E D E L' H O M M E .

Style

Style SCENT S

THE 24-HOUR NOSE

WHAT TO WEAR FROM DAY TO NIGHT

CALVIN KLEIN ENCOUNTER FRESH

The whiff of refreshing mojito opens the scent, extracts of light rum and lavender give the it an elegant edge, and, when dried down, citrus leaves and sandalwood create sensuality.

Makes you think of sunsets and swaying palm trees.

P4,898 for 100ml.

GIVENCHY GENTLEMEN ONLY

At first, this woody fragrance gives off spiciness with green mandarin, pink peppercorns, and nutmeg. But an intimate discovery reveals a sensuality, a trio of woods.

Assertive, powerful and modern.

BURBERRY BRIT RHYTHM

The woody leather notes of styrax and cedar bring this scent to life, while fresh basil and spicy cardamom infuse it with the adrenaline of rock and roll.

Bold at first blush, it leaves the skin with sexiness. P4,698 for 90ml.

SALVATORE FERRAGAMO ACQUA ESSENZIALE

This scent is polite and gentle. It opens with a mix of citruses and aquatic Cascalone and ends with the masculine elegance of woods. A twist of musk makes this slightly floral scent smell like freedom. P4,598 for 100ml.

PAUL SMITH PORTRAIT FOR MEN

This is a collection of fragrant details from around the world. With a distinct green tea note, cedarwood, and a sweet balsamic facet of Tolu Balm, it is an aromatic snapshot of the adventurous man in transit. P3,798 for 80ml.

LACOSTE L.12.12 NOIR

Refreshing watermelon with Egyptian basil melt into the skin, lavender and verbena warm the heart, and intense notes of dark chocolate add vigor. This clings to you, changing from a light scent into a fervent darkness.

P4,750 for 100 ml.

NOT YOUR AVERAGE BLUE BL A ZER FOUR OPTIONS TO HELP YOU STAND OUT THIS SEASON

LIGHTLY PAT TERNED Two-button woolcashmere-and-silk jacket

by Luigi Bianchi Mantova.

HOW I DRESS NOW

WILLIE GEIST

DECONSTRUCTED Two-button linen-and-cotton jacket by L.B.M. 1911.

THE TODAY AND MORNING JOE COHOST ON GROWING INTO A BLUE BLAZER

78 E S Q U I R E S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3

a tailor? A blazer is generally grabbed off the rack by Mom every few years at Brooks Brothers or Syms (we favored the one on Route 17 North in Paramus) in a race to keep up with pubescent growth spurts. I believe my size was “close enough.”

Then something happens, quietly, over all those years of being forced into an ill-fitting uniform of adulthood: The thing starts to make sense. You begin to like the places the blue blazer takes you. My singlebreasted guy gets me out of the house on weekends with a pair of jeans and a pocket square to color it up.

It wakes up with me on those early, dark workdays.

The blazer and I rise before dawn many mornings for the trip to 30 Rock, joined for a day of television by a pair of gray pants, everything a bit more fitted than that old church getup from back in the day.

After all those years of mixed feelings, you wake up and see the blue blazer has elbowed its way to the front of the closet. And, by God, it has earned that real estate. It has earned our respect. It has become essential. The blue blazer has always been there for us, hanging patiently, waiting for us to grow into it.

DOUBLE-BREASTED Cotton-and-linen jacket

by Jack Spade.

WITH BUT TONS THAT P OP Two-button linen jacket

by CH Carolina Herrera.

FEHJH7?J 8O :KIJ?D 7AIB7D:

I can’t say for sure where I was headed the first time my mom put a blue blazer on me. Church, probably.

West Side Presbyterian in Ridgewood, New Jersey, specifically, where my blazer was paired with a clipon tie and a pair of khakis for a Sunday morning with my fellow congregants. The blazer gave the impression to all that I was a well-scrubbed, respectful, devout young man, even as I heckled the pastor under my breath and drew a pair of boobs on the offertory cards. Powerful as it may be, there’s only so much a blue blazer can conceal.

When you’re young, the blue blazer feels like a grown-up costume. It’s the first piece of adult clothing that most boys ever own, and on those rare occasions when you pull it out of the back left-hand corner of your closet—for church, weddings, funerals, and graduations—it gives you the look (in your own mind, anyway) of one of those old men with white hair and stock portfolios talking about putting in the Men’s Grill. (Ted Knight’s Judge Smails in Caddyshack, at Bushwood Country Club, comes to mind.) The fit is never quite right because, really, what kid goes to

Ask Nick

Sullivan T H E U.S . E S Q U I R E FAS H I O N D I R E CT O R W I L L N OW TA K E YO U R Q U E ST I O N S

WHAT ARE SOME DIFFERENT WAYS TO FOLD A POCKET SQUARE? I LIKE THE LOOK OF THEM, BUT I NEVER REALLY KNOW IF I’M FOLDING THEM RIGHT.

? B B K I J H 7J ? E D 8 O 8 ; H D : I 9 > ? < < ; H : ; 9 A ; H : 7L ? : BO D 9 > 0 M ? H ; : ? C 7 = ; I

Justin, there are several ways to fold a pocket square, but a lot depends on the material from which it’s made. Both cotton and linen work a lot like origami, and once folded into one of any number of possible shapes, the cloth holds a sharp crease that tends to stay put [Fig. 1a,

by J. Press]. Not so with silk, which really looks best billowing nonchalantly from the mouth of the pocket [Fig. 1b, by Brioni]. Master the techniques and you’ll probably find one that you favor over all the others. Just don’t faff about it for too long or worry how it looks all the time. Life’s too short.

I’VE GOT A PAIR OF CORDS THAT ARE A FEW YEARS OLD, AND THE RIBS ARE SO THIN THAT I’VE BEEN TOLD THEY LOOK LIKE VELVET. IF I DECIDE TO REPLACE THEM, WHAT’S THE OPTIMAL THICKNESS WHEN IT COMES TO THE RIBS? GRANT ATKINS TEMPE, ARIZ.

Corduroy comes in several different thicknesses, which are determined by the width of each individual cord, also known as a wale. (Wale is a very old word deriving from the Anglo Saxon word for the raised ridges in a plowed field.

Which is all suitably agricultural, given the rustic origins of corduroy as the “poor man’s velvet,” worn by huntsmen.)

Anyway, the number of wales to the inch can vary from 16 in a needle cord [Fig. 2] to eight in a wide-wale corduroy [Fig.

fig.

1b

fig.

1a

JUSTIN STEWART SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF.

3]. Generally, the finer the cord

cognac and all points darker

[Fig. 4, by Paul Stuart], the slimmer the look.

[Fig. 5, left: Shoes by Grenson; belt by Cole Haan] will suffice.

I HAVE RECENTLY NOTICED MORE MEN WEARING TIE CLIPS IN MY OFFICE. ARE THESE NOW IN STYLE?

OVER THE YEARS, IT’S BECOME A STAPLE FOR PILOTS IN THE AIR FORCE TO SPORT MUSTACHES WHEN DEPLOYED. WHILE I WANT TO HONOR THIS TRADITION, MY FACE IS FAR NARROWER, AND I WANT TO DO IT WITH A MORE MODERN FLAIR. ANY SUGGESTIONS?

MATT REILLY NEW YORK, N. Y.

Matt: I am prepared to accept that this particular accessory is popular elsewhere (not here) as an easy (read: lazy) shorthand for the modern narcissist who wants to tell everyone in the room he’s got style down.

The thing is, though, that there is something a little too neat and uniform about a tie clip.

For example, when I wear a tie, I tend to deliberately yank it off-kilter, and I rarely tuck the thin end into the keeper, because achieving neckwear perfection is never my goal.

If you want to achieve a look that is yours and yours alone, a tie clip seems to me a colossal waste of time.

NAVY SUIT: BLACK BELT AND BLACK SHOES OR BROWN BELT AND BROWN SHOES? THANKS. CRAIG CHENEY LOUISVILLE, KY.

fig. 2

fig. 3

fig. 4

Some shy away from pairing navy suits with black shoes, etc.

[Fig. 5, right: Shoes and belt by Church’s], but there’s absolute-

ly nothing wrong with it. The only thing you need to make sure of when pairing navy with brown shoes is that the brown isn’t too light. A good shade of

fig. 5

KARL JOHNSON LOCATION WITHHELD

wIn 2008, a pilot in the Royal Air Force was working with the U. S. Air Force in Afghanistan.

His American commanding officer insisted he trim his somewhat bushy ’stache to bring it in line with the more modest caterpillars permitted on his American peers. After something of a standoff, the pilot consulted the Queen’s Regulations—under “Growth of Hair and Beards”—and his ’stache stayed. Bottom line: Stand your ground and wear the kind of mustache you want to wear.

With your physiognomy, a large moustache would not be wise. I would let it grow and then trim until you find a shape that pleases you. I would not suggest you twizzle the ends Poirot-style, as that is more suited to a hipster bar than a modern Air Force jet.

GOT A QUESTION FOR NICK SULLIVAN? E-MAIL HIM AT ESQST YLE@HEARST.COM.

S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3 E S Q U I R E 79

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Now at work on his third album, he cites John Mayer, Dave Matthews Band, and Led Zeppelin as powerful influences.

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Robin says, of Ira Cruz and Mark Escueta: “I was a fan of theirs as a child. I am still a fan. It was such an honor not just to meet them, but to perform with them.”

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;SONGS MAKE THEIR OWN CONNECTIONS, WE JUST NEED TO KEEP WRITING AND SHARING.â&#x20AC;?

Known primarily for his work with Rivermaya, one of the most successful bands in Philippine history, Mark has learned a thing or two about dealing with diďŹ&#x20AC;erent people over the years. â&#x20AC;&#x153;My Dad would always talk about the importance of establishing, building and taking care of relationships with people you meet along the way,â&#x20AC;? says Mark, who is currently serving doing duty on vocals, guitar, and percussion. He adds: â&#x20AC;&#x153;If youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re in a band setup, communication MUST be constant and comfortable. A band that laughs together, stays together.â&#x20AC;?

Mark talks enthusiastically about a collaboration between Joey Ayala, Rivermaya, and his sister Carisse Escueta, with additional production input from Vin Dancel and Kakoi Legaspi, on a song for Pinoy children for the upcoming album Jooma Jam. â&#x20AC;&#x153;This is also a special collaboration for me, because itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the ďŹ rst time my wife [actress Jolina Magdangal] and I sing together in one song.â&#x20AC;?

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;M GAME FOR ANYTHING. I TRY NOT TO IMPOSE MYSELF ON THE MUSIC. I PREFER TO REACT TO WHAT I HEAR.â&#x20AC;?

Ira Cruz has won numerous awards for his work as a musician, composer, and producer; he is perhaps best known for his amazing guitar work in bands like Bamboo and Kapatid. Ira considers himself â&#x20AC;&#x153;fortunate,â&#x20AC;? and says: â&#x20AC;&#x153;I just do what I do. Play guitar. I like it. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fun.â&#x20AC;? (He adds: â&#x20AC;&#x153;I try not to think about what other people think... I end up second-guessing myself.â&#x20AC;?) Asked about artists that he loves, his answer is simple and sure: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Miles Davis.â&#x20AC;?

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Good guys.â&#x20AC;?

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XXX E S Q U I R E S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3

CREDITS GO HERE

INTERVIEWS BY CLIFFORD OLANDAY, IETH INOLINO, AND KARA ORTIGA PHOTOGRAPHS BY PAUL DEL ROSARIO AND IAN CASTAÃ&#x2018;ARES ILLUSTRATIONS BY BOIZEI MALICDEM

THERE IS MORE AWARENESS ABOUT

THE WAY WE PUT OURSELVES TOGETHER . W E MIND THE FIT . W E WEAR COLORS AND PATTERNS . W E ARE INTER ESTED IN NUANCES LIKE MONK STRAPS OR POCKET SQUARES . T HE STYLES OF THE WORLD INHABIT OUR CLOSETS .

AND YET WE ARE BOUND BY CULTURAL IDEAS ABOUT HOW THE F ILIPINO MAN SHOULD APPEAR. N EVER LIKE A PEACOCK . J UST A LITTLE MORE STYLISH . S EVEN INFLUENCERS OF LOCAL MENSWEAR RETRACE HOW WE ’ VE AR RIVED AT WHAT WE WE WEAR TODAY .

“ T H E F A S H I O N W A S M O R E S T R E E T, M O R E R O C K .”

INO CALUZA, DESIGNER, VIKTOR: In the ‘90s, the fashion was more street, more rock. It was the Eraserheads. When you see them, it was passion. They wanted to look that way. In Malate, the uniform was silver or denim jeans, dark long-sleeves, and a jacket—at least in the crowd that I was in. I wasn’t in the preppy crowd. Back when the prevailing fashion in Manila was safe, Malate was able to pick up this trend without making it look like a costume.

JAPPY GONZALEZ, PRESIDENT, H&F RETAIL CONCEPTS, INC: Music was, of course, a huge factor. It was the checkered shirt and REM. But, culturally, grunge didn’t really relate to us. Unless you were the Club Dredd guy, it would make no sense for you to look that way.

FREDERICK PERALTA, DESIGNER:

I hated the grunge look. It’s the lousiest era of style. I did not submit myself to a fashion that looked like trash because it never enhanced my look. Back then, Filipino men were conservative.

They wanted comfort over style. You looked at men as men. Not metrosexual.

Not stylish like actors. They dressed up like Wall Street types. It was long-sleeve shirts [fig. 1], pleated pants, and cufflinks. It was a shirt that’s pinstriped [fig. 2] or checkered, not floral or abstract. There was also a bigger market for basic clothing. There was this T-shirt mentality. Men wore polos, but it’s not as fitted as today’s polos.

CALUZA: The preppy guy, the polo guys, the colorful guys were on the other end of

the spectrum. The mainstream trends. It’s funny. I’ve always been a non-conformist when it comes to dressing. All my friends would be wearing Benetton and Ralph Lauren. I didn’t, because I hated big logos.

I would buy polo shirts, but I would cut off the tags.

BEN CHAN, CHAIRMAN, SUYEN CORPORATION:

Logomania was the sign of the times. The ‘90s was also a time of transition from casual labels to luxury brands, which were starting to bank on the huge potential of the male market. And in between, there was an ABC of designer bridge lines.

It was the democratization of fashion.

Men had more options, including the high-low trend of wearing an Hermès H Belt with Bench denim and a Louis Vuitton messenger bag.

M BARRETTO, DESIGNER: In the 2000s, men became more conscious about fit: slim, straight, skinny, low waist. That’s how my clients were. They became very anal about their suits. They wanted their suits to follow the form of their bodies. Or if they were chubby, they wanted me to make suits that made their bodies look good.

PERALTA: Jackets still had thin shoulder pads, so the shape would look like a V. Like a swimmer with broad shoulders and a V-shaped torso. The pants became straight cut. But majority of men wanted their pants to be tapered. Not slim. The slim cut arrived, but you still had to adapt the cut to the body of the wearer, because there are guys who will never look good in slim pants because they have big calves or thighs.

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CALUZA: I thought the skinny silhouette would fit Filipinos because they aren’t stocky. But when I introduced skinny jeans in 2003, no one picked them up. Then, all the rock bands from the UK and US came.

They were wearing super skinny everything. Skinny became popular in the late 2000s. You know when a trend is really in?

When you see guys that don’t even look good in it wear it.

S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3 E S Q U I R E 85

“ T H E R E W A S A M O V E M E N T T O W A R D S T H E S L I M C U T.”

CHAN: I guess it was the perfect collision of fashion trends and body awareness. Globally, there was a movement toward the slim cut. At the same time, people were actively into health and fitness. Men were were ready to show off their bodies. We introduced a vintage fit [fig. 3] , which is cut significantly slimmer than our original fit, in our shirts. We also introduced both slim and skinny fits in our jeans.

RHETT EALA, DESIGNER: In the late 2000s, there was Helmut Lang and Dior Homme, so everything started to become fitted. Everything was close to your body.

So there was a big contrast between the early 2000s and the late 2000s. I think, because men started becoming more fit, they wanted to show off their bodies. Because when you were wearing big clothes, it really hid a lot.

CHAN: Foreign brands brought a lot of on-trend fashion options. What you saw in magazines became available in the market.

Aside from that, cheaper airfare made it possible for more men to travel and shop.

And even if they don’t shop, they returned with a more informed awareness about fashion.

BARRETTO: Travelling was really a big factor.

When you travel, you JC BUENDIA, DESIGNER: see what other people Everything got shorter. are wearing. Even in I guess it was the influplaces like Hong Kong, ence of Prada suits. you’ll be amazed: “This There was also a change is how they really dress. It’s not just in the of the ideal body type magazines.” When they ride the MTR or for men. Men got when they go to the mall, that’s how they slimmer as opposed to buff. So they were really dress. And then you go buy the things showing off their 32-inch waists, because they wear. When you come back here, you even the jackets they wanted were very wear it. nipped at the waist.

GONZALEZ: Now, that’s all GONZALEZ: You know what, they do. Men want to show I think, with the advent of off: “I’m fit. I’m healthy.” the Internet, you realWhen I was younger, I ize [foreign brands] were couldn’t care less if I wore always there. Now, they’re a badly fitting shirt. Right? just within everyone’s But the guys nowadays, no reach. When we started way. They’re not going to 17 years ago, it was very get caught wearing somedifficult to communicate thing like that, right? Now, an idea for, let’s say, who the slim fit is everywhere.

Rick Owens was. Whereas You go to Uniqlo, and now, people are more exthere’s a slim fit, which is posed. It’s a smaller world. great. We live in an age I think the proposition where there’s no excuse that we offer is that we’ve to look bad. Everything is always been a directional ready and available to you store. Our clients tend at any price you want. to gravitate toward that when they go abroad. Now, CALUZA: There were alit is so much easier that ready a lot of new foreign [these brands] are within brands in Manila. These reach. Maybe even better, were the brands that were because we buy for our always on top of everymarket. thing and were always one F IG . 4, FROM TOP : J EANS BY (P26,398) D IOR H OMME season ahead. If you’re a CALUZA: You also have to AND (P2,499.50) L EVI ’ S .

Filipino guy, and you don’t remember the magazines. pick up what’s stylish, In the 2000s, the magathere’s something wrong with you. It’s not zine industry boomed in the Philippines. even about masculinity anymore, it’s about Men started reading. Before, it was just being open to an idea about fashion.

Preview, Mega, and Metro. Then, there

86 E S Q U I R E S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3

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were style magazines for guys like Metro Him and Manual. They’re now gone, but they affected the way men looked at clothes. Filipino men have a different idea of masculinity. For them, if they wear something different, they’ll look feminine.

That’s how our culture is. But when you go to Hong Kong or Tokyo, you’ll see guys wearing these kinds of clothes and it’s not a big deal. But if you transport that particular guy into an MRT station here, people will be like, “The hell are you wearing?”

CHAN: The decade saw the rapid rise of men’s fashion, from style magazines to brands to grooming products. It made dressing up okay for men. Suddenly, it was okay for men to wear slim pants [fig. 4], to go to salons, to wear color [fig.

5] and prints, to be called fashionable. Of course, it helped that a lot of retail brands offered more than just the basics. We weren’t surprised that some of our biggest movements were colored jeans and printed underwear. And these have become our brand staples.

PERALTA: Color has become a thing. Before, men sticked to midnight blue, black, and white. I have a men’s line in SM, and my colors come in different shades of gray, blue, beige, and champagne. There are also prints. Aside from the striped, there are

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88 E S Q U I R E S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3

checkered pants. There are a lot of choices for experimentation for each individual. It’s more fun! Now, men complete what they wear with with accessories. They know how to buy pocket squares. Before, it’s just plain white. But now, you can see a lot of prints, colors, stripes, abstract. They layer bracelets. They collect shades and shoes. The market is braver now.

EALA: A lot of men are really into the It shoe [fig. 6] or the It belt. Even the heterosexual men wear them. They’re really conscious about their shoes.

BARRETTO: They know what shoes to wear with a particular outfit. Even if you’re just in a white shirt, blazer, and jeans as long as your shoes [fig. 7] are nice, you’re stylish already.

CALUZA: Men are more adventurous because of media. You’re being bombarded with so many images. You see all these foreign brands that look different. You see David Beckham wearing something not really manly and yet it works on him. It’s like your brain is being reprogrammed to accept new ideas. The moment you realize that something can look good on another guy is the moment you realize that it might look good on you, too.

PERALTA: The images on TV of actors, hosts, newscasters, and even politicians, who dress well are so influential in learning how to dress yourself. Personally, I look up to President Obama because he wears his suit so well. I’ve never seen him sloppy even with just a T-shirt on. Giorgio Armani is a very big influence in my design, because I cater to that kind of market. With actors, I always look up to Piolo Pascual. I find that he really has a taste in fashion.

CALUZA: I think the clubs made a big impact on how men dress now. In the ‘90s, when men went to clubs, they’d be in T-shirts.

But when Republiq and Embassy imposed a specific dress code, that’s when guys dressed up. They had to wear jackets. Men were more dressed up, and then they realized that it felt good.

PERALTA: If they need to wear a suit, they’ll be in a suit [fig. 8]. Filipinos wear suits in different patterns and designs. The influence of shine from a couple of years ago is still strong. Everybody wants to have a shiny suit. And everybody wants to have a printed Paul Smith-type suit. They have floral prints or bold colors mixed with checkered or striped trousers. There’s a market for that.

BARRETTO: Men wear sport coats [fig. 9] with jeans. I have clients who would bring their jeans or colored pants and ask me what coat

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“ F A B R I C S A L L O W E D A L O T O F T H I N G S T O H A P P E N .”

GONZALEZ: I think fabrics are also very interesting. Fabrics allowed a lot of things to happen. There are jackets that you can wear here in Manila. You don’t feel the heat. And I think technology has a lot to do with it. The advances in fabric have been really great. It’s allowed creativity to rise to a level that’s not been there for a while. There are super lightweight wools that are perfect for our climate. High-twist cottons allow a little breathability, but doesn’t have transparency. What men are conscious of— even more than women—is the quality of fabric. For guys, a pair of pants is a pair of pants. But the fabric has to work. You sell bad fabric to a guy, it doesn’t work. A shirt is a shirt is a shirt, but why are you paying three times more? Because the fabric is just superior. You put on a good shirt, you know it’s a good shirt.

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to wear with them. Or they have a pair of shoes that they don’t know what to wear with, but they want to wear a coat with it.

I’m happy about that.

GONZALEZ: I still think Manila is very, very relaxed. The way we conduct our business and social lives is very relaxed. There’s less angst. We have that ease, so people dress up that way. We dress up with less conformity, too. We don’t wear a jacket all the time.

Whereas, for New Yorkers, when they don’t wear a jacket, they feel naked. For us, we don’t have that constriction. A country like, say, Hong Kong, experiences summers, but they still wear jackets. Why? Because they grew up in school needing to wear that jacket. We never had to. We have our barong.

S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3 E S Q U I R E 89

“ T H E B A R O N G I S A N E C E S S I T Y F O R E V E R Y B O D Y.”

PERALTA: The traditional barong [fig. 10] is a necessity for everybody. It’s a staple outfit for any formal occasion. But we designers also dictate the silhouette. It’s tapered. Not loose or boxy. Gone are the days when all barongs were embroidered in floral designs. We use asari fabric to create a modern barong. Some are embroidered. Some are silk screened and printed. change. My clients would say, “Frederick, what’s good for me? Make it. I’m tired of wearing this and that.” The fashion taste has evolved.

CALUZA: The stylish Filipino guy is not afraid to pair a trendy item with a classic [fig. 11] from his wardrobe. For me, he wouldn’t wear a Raf Simons jacket with his Hermès belt. A fashionable guy knows when and how to edit. It’s the best thing you can do is get to that point where you’re comfortable with what you’re wearing.

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BUENDIA: They’re more open

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EALA: The barong of course is our national costume. It’s actually very practical. If you wear a linen barong to the office, that would be nice.

It’s also very formal.

GONZALEZ: I just had a guest recently.

Adrian Joffe, the creative director of Dover Street and husband of Rei Kawakubo, was in Manila for a day. We work closely with them because of Comme des Garçons. Interestingly, his observation about Manila is that people dress quite smartly.

That’s pretty great! And that’s from someone who’s truly global. At that time, he mentioned that he was also on his way to another agency in a place which was economically more superior than us, but which he doesn’t consider as fashionsmart as we are. So in the end, it’s not just about having money. Filipinos definitely have taste, and we’ve always had it. We may not be as fearless, but we definitely got taste.

PERALTA: Filipinos are also now open to

90 E S Q U I R E S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3

to different styles. There’s the modern preppy [fig. 12].

The dandy [fig. 13]. He has a good collection of suits, from Prada to Paul Smith.

He wears a custom-fit sports shirt [fig. 14] from Fred Perry. These are cut a bit shorter so that it gives them a longer leg. I think Filipino men dress better now.

GONZALEZ: You

have to go back to uniforms.

You have to have a good pair of black shoes.

I mean a basic lace-up. It can just be a clean, black—something with a little more integrity, something that goes through the ages. A black derby. A good leather, nicely shined. Something with a little bit more masculinity. A slim pair of black pants can take you through anything, whether you wear it with rubber shoes or you wear it with those shoes. Never be without those, and a good-fitting white shirt. That’s all you need. Just look right, just look clean, just look neat. Look like things fit you. Don’t be shabby. Because if you’re shabby, people will think you are shabby. You won’t get respect if you don’t treat yourself with respect. That’s why I like people who make an investment in how they appear, and it’s not all about fashion. It’s about you. It’s about you showing people how you see yourself.

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S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3 E S Q U I R E 91

22 SHORT STORIES ABOUT

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BY LUIS KATIGBAK

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1. A GIRL NAMED JESSY WE ARE TOLD THAT NAMES HAVE POWER. Many of us were named after saints; some of us, after presidents or actors. “He thought I was a boy,” Jessy says of her father, who named her. “He was hoping I was a boy, but now... it’s a girl, so yeah, Jessy.” There is nothing androgynous about Jessy; her considerable charms are that of a lovely, lively girl growing into womanhood. And yet her name suits her, as none other would, as if to say, no, our destinies are decided in increments, day by day, whatever we are called.

3 YEARS OLD ASKED ABOUT her early childhood, before she moved to Manila, Jessy hears the bombs in her head. It was wartime, and her mother always had to be very careful about going out. They moved from Abu Dhabi to Lebanon to Bahrain, from hotel to hotel, wherever her musician father could get work. There were times that they would hide in the bathroom when the bombing was at its worst, there were days holed up in her grandparents’ house with the war outside their door.

“No,” she tells the interviewer, “I don’t remember my childhood.”

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2

3

SONGS OF MY FATHER

4.

INSTANT NOODLES

“WHEN WE MOVED HERE to the Philippines, BETWEEN TAPINGS, the young actress finds herself in a supermarket. She walks down a whole aisle devoted to instant my dad would always send us tapes of his voice, noodles in their endless variety of imitation flavors: packets of of himself playing songs. So whenever he would pseudo-beef and ersatz chicken, of shrimp-reminiscent powder. She remembers harder times, when she would have instant send one, we’d play it. All the time,” Jessy says. noodles night after night for dinner, just to feel something in You ask her: What was your favorite song that he her belly. Zero nutrition and sky-high levels of sodium. She hurwould sing? “Um... he used to sing ‘Simply Jessie,’ ries past, telling herself she doesn’t miss it at all. and that song... that Bob Marley song... Girl I wanna make you 5. IN MANILA sweat, sweat ‘til you can’t sweat no more…” As Jessy sings, im“I LOVE MANILA. I love Quiapo,” buing the Inner Circle song with a slight sweet melancholy Jessy says. “I love the gritty streets it was never meant to bear, you suppress the impulse to of Tondo. I love it. I have a role right correct her, and wonder why every love song from the ‘70s now and it’s very much connected makes you sad and every reggae song lifts your mood a little, to Tondo... and to the palengke... This is different because it’s a teleserye. and wonder if, for Jessy, the reverse is true.

It’s not a movie. It’s not a film. Um...

7.

THE YOUNG PHOTOGRAPHER WONDERS BEAUTIFUL IS JUST A WORD, the young photographer thinks, as he shoots picture upon picture of the hot new actress. He likes her; she’s the kind of girl who’s funny without actually needing to crack any jokes, and she makes his job easy by being game and being beautiful. They’re all beautiful, he thinks.

After this he has another shoot, and then two more the next day, a Sunday. He is tired of capturing moments. He thinks about the industry of images, and about how we are all here to distract each other until we are each ushered, alone, out of life at the end of all our years. “That’s it,” the editor says. “I think we’ve got it.” No, we don’t, the young photographer thinks, his finger still poised above the camera’s shutter release button, his eye still observing the new actress through his lens.

6. ASK A GAY MAN “I HAVE SOMEONE FOR YOU,” my officemate declares.

“She’s very sexy.” “You’re gay,” I remind him. “It’s highly likely that we don’t find the same things sexy.” “The fact that even I, a gay man, find her very sexy should tell you something,” he retorts. “That she has a penis?” I say.

8

IMPROVE YOURSELF AND WHATEVER

I like it. I like going to church in Baclaran or Quiapo. Filipinos are very religious. And I like it.” You imagine the young actress surrounded by old stone and restless ghosts, by the rush and crush of a crowd shaping her sensibilities over time, like a river shaping rocks. “So I couldn’t... I can’t think of any other way, of me growing up somewhere else. So yeah.”

“I REALLY DIDN’T WANT TO DO THIS, I SWEAR. ‘Please don’t make me sing, don’t make me dance, don’t make me act.’ That’s how I was before. I was really young, I think... I think I started modeling when I was three. So, I guess I had that experience and I had that exposure, to getting instructions and smiling in front of the camera and everything. But I stopped, because I didn’t want to be an artista. I went back to regular schooling, and then summer workshops came along in ABS-CBN, and then my mom wanted me to go because my mom’s a frustrated singer, frustrated artista. I went kase I had nothing to do during summer. I had, sabi niya, ‘You don’t have anything better to do, just go to workshops, just improve yourself and whatever.’ So I did.”

TEN.

PA-SEXY

9 . T H E O T H E R J E S SY S

IN HER OTHER LIVES, Jessy is a pilot or a doctor or a lawyer. In this one, she almost didn’t stay an actress. In 2007 she was 14, and far from fulfilled. “I got small roles—mga sister ni ganyan, best friend ni ganito... and I almost quit. I wanted to “AND THEN my first show came give up many times.” Not because she was bored, but because along, Sabel. So I did it. I kind of she wanted to do more. “The moment that you want it, it felt... I still think... if it was given gets really hard, because you want to exceed your expectato me now, I could’ve portrayed it tions of yourself. You want to be better.” It is a sentiment that better, but well, what do I know? I the other Jessys—the pilot, the doctor, the lawyer—no doubt was 17 at that time. I hadn’t even experienced first love or a boyfriend. shared, across universes, their voices an unheard chorus of So, I really think it was a bit of a testing show for me. Then I did Buambition and frustration and eventual vindication. doy... and then came along Paraiso with Matteo Guidicelli.

That’s where I started to loosen up. I started to discover things that I could do. I didn’t want to make pa-sexy pa THEY ARE BEING INTERVIEWED: the young actor and the young actress, before, kase sabi ko this isn’t for me, I’m not sexy. I’m the starring in a new series together and already said to be involved in a real-life type of girl who would wear jeans and rubber shoes and a romance. What do you look for in a partner?, they are asked. She talks about the white shirt to a meeting. Yeah, well this is upgraded... or effect of appearances, which is all we have to go on at first, and then intimacy, which is what necessarily follows. Eyes, he says, and legs; each quality he names level up. And then I realized, ‘Okay, I’ll make pa-sexy na is quickly followed by a compliment aimed in her direction. He says all the right lang. Whatever.’ So I did, but the type of pa-sexy na wala kilig-inducing things, which she will wonder about later on, and he will forget. lang. The effortless ano... So it just came along, and now She makes a joke about her legs and he murmurs his appreciation, saying that he has been observing them for quite some time now.

I’m more comfortable with myself and yeah.”

11. LOVE TEAM

S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3 E S Q U I R E 95

HOW TO DEAL WITH HEARTBREAK

FIRST, YOU SWIM. You go to the beach; when you can’t go the beach, you go to a pool. You move through the water until the movement stays with you even after you emerge. If you don’t know how to swim, you learn. You go to the gym. You run. You buy a mountain bike. You lose the slight roundness you used to notice in your body.

You move. You keep moving.

13. SHOWBIZ

14

DREAM ROLE

“LET’S BE HONEST HERE,” Jessy says.

“It’s just... you can’t really trust anyone... “YUNG ROLE KO NGAYON, which is Maria Merright away. I mean after all, it’s a very cedes, it’s very… As in, you know, ‘yung mga films ni Maricel Soriano before, where she’d wear a cap, competitive world out there. It’s not just and like a big shirt and jeans and rubber shoes ‘healthy competition, healthy competi- and polo shirt, that’s what I look like. It’s one of tion.’ It’s not. I’m sorry. You guys go for my dream roles. ‘Yung wala lang. No makeup, no anything, dirty ka.” one role and only one of you guys will be picked. So, might as well just cut out the BS, cut out all the pretentions, and all the sweetness, and all the everything... all the kaplastikan, and be honest with each other na, ‘Oh hey, we’re going for the same role, may the best girl win!’ I am very transparent... That’s my problem. If I don’t like something I’d say it or I show it. If I like something, I show it also.

So, I think if a lot of people were like that, I think it would be better. You know, like walang limitations. I mean, yeah, there are limitations, but walang pretentions. Kase ang panget eh. I really don’t like it. I mean hindi nga ako ma-showbiz eh. Tapos, I am in showbiz, so I’m going to make showbiz pa my life. Oh my God. I mean, eh di sana lagi na lang ako nasa TV o lagi na lang ako nasa tabloids, but no.”

15. THAT COULD HAVE BEEN ME

16.

REAL LIFE

THERE ARE THOSE WHO ARE CHOSEN, the ones who catch a director or producer or executive’s eye, and those who are not chosen. We can follow the ones who are chosen; we know how to search for them and watch them and see what becomes of their AFTER THE INTERVIEW, the lives. But the unchosen ones become things we cannot follow, young actress will go to church. become teachers or account executives or salesladies or nurses When she wakes up the next day, she will go to the gym, and work or event organizers or housewives – people we do not know who out for an hour, an hour and a become the lovers and mothers of people we do not know. And half—or she will go for a run, or some of them will be grateful, and laugh when they see the chosen ride her bike. If she has time off from work she shops, or does on TV or on the cover of a magazine, and say to their friends, that KTV with her friends. There are could have been me. And some of them will not be grateful, and no artistas in the young actress’ say to no one in particular, that could have been me. inner circle. I wonder if they, 18.

EVERYONES

GREATEST FEAR

“EVERYONE’S SCARED of being rejected. I’m scared of failures. It’s part of life. You learn. I’m scared of having my heart broken again. I’m actually traumatized right now. I desire na huwag muna ako. Huwag mag-fall in love muna. It will come, in time. I have to wait for it na lang. I don’t want to rush things, so siguro, greatest fear ko is getting my heart broken. I think that’s everyone’s greatest fear.”

THE ART 19 D I R E C T O R DREAMS

too, daydream of being actors and actresses, as many do; and if so, I wonder if they ever want to ask their actress friend—what do you daydream of being?

IN HER DREAM, giant letterforms fall from the sky and clutter her previously minimalist landscape. She runs from the falling type, only to find that she is running in place; the surface under her feet is made up of life-size images of a young actress, her magazine’s latest cover subject, each one sliding off to make room for a new one as her feet pound away, gaining no ground. She knows one of these images is perfect for the cover but they are blurring past so rapidly—she reaches out—

T W E N T Y. A S K A G AY M A N ( P A R T 2 )

“WHAT DID I TELL YOU?” my officemate says, subtly gloating, if there is such a thing as subtle gloating. “Yes, she’s very sexy,” I admit.

“She’s fucking gorgeous, actually. But she’s also sweet and honest and she brings out a certain protectiveness in me, which makes me feel guiltier about thinking she’s so hot. It’s like the dirty thoughts and the protective thoughts are chasing each other in circles in my head, like a dog trying to bite its own tail. It’s very annoying.” “I thought you would feel that way,” says my officemate, smugly. “Damn you,” I say.

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1 7.

T H E B E ST PA RT OF THE BUSINESS

“YOU FEEL good about yourself making people happy, like whenever they see you, their eyes will be, like, out. They go crazy seeing you.

Those faces are priceless. Those smiles are priceless. People will say na, ‘Hay, ang showbiz naman is making people happy.’ But it’s a really good feeling.” The paycheck is just part of it, Jessy says. “At the end of the day, why do you do it? It’s because you want to act. Before, I didn’t want it but now, my God, it’s so different.” She recounts the roles that have endeared her to the audience, the roles they identify with.

“You inspire people. You inspire others. And it’s a good feeling that you’re inspiring people and you are setting an example for them.”

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T W E LV E .

21.

J E S S Y, Y E A R S FROM NOW THIS IS THE STORY that Jessy Mendiola tells herself about her future: “Maybe I’m married? With two kids and a very hot husband,” she laughs. “With two houses. One in the north and one in the south, but all because of my hard work, and not because of my husband. What else?

I could imagine my husband playing with my children, and then running across a field and laughing at each other and tickling each other.” It is a happy story, and in that sense a good story, and you hope it comes true.

22

AT THE END OF EVERYTHING

“I WANT PEOPLE TO REMEMBER ME. That I was here. That I did this and I was the girl who brought big smiles to their faces.”

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S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3 E S Q U I R E 99

STORIES BY ERIC GAMALINDA J E S S I CA H AG E D O R N MARIA CARMEN SARMIENTO IAN ROSALE S CASOCOT FRANCEZCA KWE

HOW WELL DO WE REALLY KNOW EACH OTHER? HOW WELL DO WE KNOW OURSELVES? MEMORIES ARE UNRELIABLE; OUR HISTORIES ARE RIDDLED WITH FALSEHOODS AND SINS OF OMISSION. IT IS IN STORIES THAT WE FIND OUR HUMANITY: OUR TRUTH, OR SOME SEMBLANCE THEREOF. STORIES DEAL WITH OUR FEARS, OUR ADDICTIONS, THE STRANGENESS OF OUR FAMILIES AND THE COMFORT OF OUR FRIENDS, OUR BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS. FOR THIS, THE SECOND ANNUAL FICTION ISSUE OF ESQUIRE PHILIPPINES, WE ARE VERY PROUD INDEED TO PRESENT ELEVEN STORIES BY ELEVEN OF OUR BEST WRITERS. SHORT SHORT STORIES BY Carl Javier, Gabriela Lee, Marguerite Alcazaren de Leon, Nikki Alfar, Quark Henares, Reno Evangelista

E D I T E D BY LU I S K AT I G B A K A N D S A R G E L AC U E S TA I L LU S T R AT I O N S BY J O AG U I L A R

S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3 E S Q U I R E 101

YES, JESUS LOVES ME

BY ERIC GAMALINDA

NORMAL FAMILIES ARE ALL ALIKE. Weird families are weird in their own way.

Mine is stranger-than-fiction weird, even by Manila standards, where “normal” doesn’t exist. For instance, when we were kids on our birthday, my siblings and I were driven to church early in the morning, where we were expected to spend at least an hour kneeling under the mournful gaze of lacerated saints. The family driver or an older sibling would count the minutes in the car, warding off peddlers who relentlessly shoved wilted strands of jasmine leis or steaming trays of rice cakes through the window, which had to be kept open because cars had no air-conditioning when we were kids and an open window and an abaca fan were the only way to endure the inhuman tropical heat.

Inside the church, the birthday celebrant contemplated all the rights and wrongs of his or her X number of years.

Whatever personal revelation he or she would find would then be shared at a quiet family dinner and rewarded with a number of gifts—all utilitarian, nothing jokey, expensive, or superfluous. I always got books from my Mom and crisp cotton handkerchiefs from my uncle, neither of which I can do without, even to this day.

I live in New York now and no one can tell me what to do on my birthday, but I’m a creature of habit and do exactly the same thing. I take a personal day and stop by a church. Any church will do, as long as there are no tourists and no service going on. I like the Grace Episcopalian chapel in the Village because it feels like something out of a small French town. Then I buy

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myself a book and make myself a nice dinner. I hang out with friends only a day or two later, when all this business of contemplation is done.

And I must confess I do come up with some interesting insights now and then.

Here’s one. Now that I’m creeping towards the half-century mark, I keep thinking about these words from Confucius: At fifty I learned the will of heaven; at sixty I was willing to heed it.

I emailed my family about it. They said it must have been the best birthday of my life.

My family has always been weird that way. I think Jesus had a lot to do with it.

Jesus was my grandfather, and he would have loved the Confucius quote. He didn’t impose that monastic birthday rule. My grandmother did. I think she did it because Jesus left early. Jesus couldn’t wait for the world to catch up with him, so he took his exit just after the first act. It wasn’t his fault. An elevator ate him up.

He died more than thirty years before I was born. Yet there was never a moment when I didn’t feel nostalgic for his company. In grade school, we always sang, “Yes, Jesus Loves Me” before class. It was our daily feel-good warm-up, a kind of 12-step for Catholic kids. I had a hard time imagining that some scruffy rebel who got nailed for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time would even so much as think about me, much less each and every boy in a class of 30, so I thought of my grandfather instead, and the tears welling in my eyes made the teachers at Holy Trinity Academy think I was the saintliest kid on the planet, and probably the one Jesus loved

the most. Sometimes I actually thought even the real Jesus loved me.

Jesus Trinidad—that was my grandfather’s full name. I admired his elegant scrawl on the frontispiece of the books he had left behind, huge leather-bound tomes (how else do you call them?) that belonged in the British Museum, not in our crowded house in Sampaloc, where books were always in danger of being devoured by termites.

What’s in a name? His contained both the mysteries of the crucified Lamb and the logically impossible Trinity. I’d go nuts if I had a name like Jesus Trinidad. But he must have been convinced that his name predestined him to seriously think about those mysteries. If stories I heard about him were true, the only topics that preoccupied him throughout his short and tragic life were the eternal puzzles of belief and doubt, the conundrum of nullity and being, and the inexplicable silence of the divine.

I’d go totally nuts.

He was a year older than my grandmother, both of them born at the turn of the twentieth century when the stronghold of Spanish medieval Catholicism was only starting to loosen in the Philippines. His was the first generation to grow up under American colonial rule. A generation, in other words, who felt it imperative not so much to cut from the past as to align itself with the future.

Judging by the books he read, I like to think he felt the same way I do about being Catholic. He must have chafed under its stifling narrow-mindedness and anachronism, yet remained curious if not

enthralled by its rituals. In practice, he chose deistic supernaturalism and agnostic realism, combining the beliefs of Kierkegaard and Herbert Spencer into one profound, and profoundly simplified, personal philosophy: that God, the Unknowable, leaves the world alone, but may occasionally disrupt the laws of nature in order to perform a miracle.

I read that somewhere on the back page of one of his books. He had scribbled and dated it the day before he died. I went back to that quote whenever things weren’t going so well in my life. I went back to it a lot. Soon I didn’t even have to read it at all—it just stuck in my head. The last time I looked was the night before I left for New York. I was sick and tired of Manila and I swore I was never coming back. His handwriting seemed so fine, so antique.

Yet the words were strangely comforting, as though he had written them especially for me. That’s when I thought I really missed him.

Jesus Trinidad was bound to be anything he wanted to be, and he wanted to be everything. As soon as he obtained his law degree, he became secretary to Supreme Court Justice George Malcolm, who was already grooming him to become a member of the Supreme Court, the youngest native ever to hold that position. To make sure he was on the right track, Justice Malcolm encouraged him to join the law firm of DeWitt, Perkins, and Brady, whose office was in the riverside business district of Escolta. And that was when his life took a hairpin turn.

Escolta was right next to Binondo, the

Chinese district, where a young mestiza, Aurora Dujua Cañizares, lived with her seven siblings. On his way to work one morning, Jesus Trinidad saw her walking to church, trailing behind her seven siblings, her face modestly covered with a veil of Sevilla lace. He was never going to forget that apparition. He spent countless sleepless nights and couldn’t focus on his cases and even lost the ability to speak or write coherently, so much so that Justice Malcolm, who thought of him as his own son, gave him the only logical advice.

So he introduced himself, then stalked her relentlessly, even going so far as to sit through Mass everyday, then started visiting her at home. Two months later, he asked her to marry him.

Aurora had a colorful if somewhat incredible family history, painstakingly narrated to the lovesick Jesus over many nights of chaste courtship in the sala of Aurora’s family home, where a three-foot plaster bust of the Sacred Heart, his namesake and doppelganger, hovered beseechingly over the whispering lovers.

Her father, Cirilo, ran a clinic in Bulacan during the Philippine revolution against Spain. Rebels crossing north from the battlefields of Manila often stopped to ask him for help. Cirilo couldn’t refuse, because A, he obdurately believed in the Hippocratic oath, and B, they’d cut his throat if he did.

The Spanish guardia civil found out and accused him of treason. He closed the clinic down, changed his name, and headed not north to join the rebels but south to Manila, where he could disap-

BY GA B R I E L A L E E THE MOON WAS RARELY SEEN IN THOSE DAYS, always hidden by a layer of clouds and debris. Sometimes a sliver of silver would be caught by one of our windows, and something would be illuminated: a crack in the concrete, a tree branch crooked in benediction, the perpetually revolving doors of the mini-mall. That night, when we caught a piece of light and watched the beam haphazardly skip across the broken bones of the city, the last man in the world died.

He was nothing but dust and cobwebs and sadness. He was wearing a jacket with Greek letters sewn across the back. His right leg was broken.

We couldn’t gather him up in our arms. We couldn’t offer him up to the sky. The sea was too far away, and only Old Ned Towers had ever seen the water, anyway. So we just waited for the wind to carefully sweep up stone and soil and root and cover the man, the way mothers would cover a child in blankets. A leaf fell on his forehead like a kiss. We waited for the moon to set. When the darkness faded and he was gone, we realized that we didn’t even know his name.

Gabriela Lee is a teacher at the University of the Philippines and an occasional writer.

pear in the frenetic anonymity of the city’s Chinese district. There he met his future wife, Consolacion.

Her name itself must have expressed the consolation he was looking for after he was forced to shut his life down and immigrate to a city he never felt comfortable in.

Consolacion didn’t really think she had any special talent, unlike him, but if she could console this young mestizo and inspire him to pick up the pieces of his refurbished life, she would gladly do so. Late in her life, however, she realized she could do something unique and unusual. She swore she could tell the presence of the devil and the Holy Virgin, both of whom she saw, with her own two eyes, at around the same time, when she was in her fifties.

The devil came in the form of an incredibly enormous and rabid black dog who tried to claw its way through the veranda one evening during supper. She faced the beast head on, brandishing the belt of Saint Anthony until it retreated, leaving only deep, telltale gashes on the door.

The Holy Virgin, on the other hand, appeared to her in a dreamlike vision one night after one of her breasts had been amputated for cancer and doctors told her she didn’t have much longer to live. The Holy Virgin promised her fifteen more years, and true enough, she survived and died exactly fifteen years to the day she had the vision.

(Cirilo wasn’t as clairvoyant: he failed to diagnose his own appendicitis on time, with obviously fatal consequences.)

Jesus had only one sibling, Dolores, who was a schoolteacher. Aurora, as I said, had seven, all of whom took turns listening rather indiscreetly, during the persistent suitor’s daily visits, pretending to be reading or studying in the adjacent dining room. Among them was a future architect; two lawyers, one of them later a Justice of the Court of Appeals; an English teacher; the future director of the Central Bank; and a doctor who would become the personal physician of President Manuel Quezon and eventually the first director of the Quezon Institute, the medical center established in honor of the president after he died of tuberculosis in Lake Placid.

Her most interesting sibling, however, was a girl named Nenita, who died at the age of sixteen after pleading a bargain with God. The story goes like this. During the cholera epidemic in Manila, their mother Consolacion (the same one who banished the canine devil) fell ill and lay dying. Nenita knelt before the gilded altar in Binondo Church and asked God to « CONTINUED

S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3 E S Q U I R E 103

He vowed that, in his dream observatory, he would find a way to prove incidents of divine manifestation scientifically, that is, by experiment, and observation. —ERIC GAMALINDA

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Aurora’s mother’s claims, scrupulously inspecting the clawed-out door the devil purportedly tried to break down, which the family had kept as a caveat. He never told her, of course, that any stray dog, if sufficiently rabid, could have done the devil’s work. As for the Holy Virgin’s oneiric messages, perhaps the divine did communicate to the human mind in dreams, and he conceded that the evidence—including the fulfillment of the prophecy—was adequately conclusive. One out of two wasn’t bad.

Jesus loved the outdoors and frequently went out on nature adventures, the riskier the better. Against his young wife’s wishes, he climbed the peak of Mount Mayon, getting close enough to the crater to gaze into its churning cauldron. He had his photograph taken there, wearing an immaculate white linen suit and a straw boater, gazing at the camera with an enigmatic nonchalance as clouds of volcanic smoke puffed ominously behind him.

But though the pleasures of the world were infinitely enchanting, he was obsessed with farther, less easily navigable worlds that he was nonetheless convinced lay beyond it. With two of his traveling companions, former classmates named Tapia and Tuason—their destinies brought together by the alphabetical seating in university— he persistently asked this question: What is the afterlife like, and what happens when you get there?

The three friends decided that the only way to gain irrefutable (i.e. scientific) knowledge of the subject was to hear about it from one who’d been there and back.

They made a pact that whoever among them died first, he would be bound by honor to come back and share the experience with the others.

The boy Tuason would die soon after.

The two friends waited, but received no sign.

Jesus himself would follow later, not during one of those reckless adventures out of town, but in the city itself, in the hands of the incipient technology that so fascinated him. And, as most deaths go, his was banal, even unjust, and could have easily been prevented.

According to a front page news report in The Manila Times, he was stepping out of the newfangled Otis elevator on the sixth floor of his office building when his leg got caught in the closing doors. The elevator boy, a janitor substituting that morning for the regular operator, tried to push him out, and thought only of turning the switch off when the elevator cage « CONTINUED

E XC E R P T

« CONTINUED spare her mother and take her life instead. Her mother recuperated, but Nenita died a few days later.

Jesus and Aurora settled in a home he built on his lawyer’s fees on a hilltop in the suburb of Sampaloc, a capacious, manyroomed love nest with wide barandillas to let the summer breeze in and a garage for a crank-start Ford model T. The house stood on a desolate, undulating grassland where the closest neighbors were the fabulously wealthy Legardas, whose sprawling, foreboding mansion lay at the peak of an adjacent hill. They had sold this part of their property to the young man for a simple reason: they were spellbound by what he planned to build on top of the hill.

He had recently become interested in astronomy and told them it was outrageous that Manila had not one decent observatory. The Observatorio Meteorológico de Manila, built by the Jesuits in 1865, devoted itself to tracking and predicting typhoons and earthquakes, and didn’t serve his purpose. What he wanted was a place of serious study where one could quietly observe the continually unfolding secrets of the universe. Because by this time, Jesus was not only a die-hard fan of Kierkegaard and Spencer, but had become an unwavering disciple of science. Just a generation ago, it was unthinkable for Filipinos to even consider pursuing that discipline, unless they were wealthy enough to study in Europe and foolish enough to challenge the archaic laws of the colony—and likely die by garrote or firing squad.

That observatory was his lifelong obsession. There was just one small problem.

Like most girls back then, Aurora went to convent school where the nuns admonished them that if there were things that were inexplicable in the universe, it was because God meant them to be so. Science had no business meddling with the mysteries. In short, guys like him lived in the 20th century and girls like her lived in the 19th—a trait he no doubt found endearing, challenging and frustrating. To prove to his wife that science and religion did meet (and that the two of them were not that incompatible), he vowed that, in his dream observatory, he would find a way to prove incidents of divine manifestation scientifically, that is, by experiment and observation.

How he could possibly do that we shall never know, because, as I said earlier, his was a very short life, and this story, devoid of any dramatic arc, will end as abruptly.

But he did go so far as to investigate

IT BEGINS WITH ONE BOOK

BY CA R L JAV I E R

SHE LEAVES IT on my bedside table.

A toothbrush might have struck fear in my heart. It’d happened too many times already: new toothbrush, then clothes, a period of hope where I would lend books, a variable amount of time, and then a depleted library.

The book is The Grammar of Visual Design.

In another week, she has two more books on the bedside table. She’s starting a TBR pile.

The toothbrush comes, but not before a couple of slim volumes of poetry appear beside my comic books in the bathroom.

Soon enough, the bedside table can’t hold our books. The piles threaten to topple, while some books lie on the ground.

There’s a new book on the top of her pile. It is a collection of short stories from an author that we both teach.

I flip through the pages, read her notes, trace the scrawls on the margins with my fingers.

They end on the 128th page and I want her to keep writing. I want to see what she thinks of my favorite story, which starts on the page 203.

Carl Javier teaches, writes, reviews movies, and studies comic books.

started going down. By that time it was too late. The elevator stopped, but Jesus’ leg was already crushed up to above the knee.

He was rushed to the Philippine General Hospital where he lost consciousness and died on the operating table three hours and forty minutes later.

Aurora, who was seven months on the way with their third child, received an anonymous phone call telling her that her husband had died in an accident. She didn’t think it was true. In fact the voice sounded so much like Jesus that she thought he was just playing a cruel joke. It was only later that evening that the hospital called to confirm the news. She would never find out who the mysterious caller was. To her dying day she would believe it was Jesus calling from the afterlife, just as he had vowed he would do.

Without the presence of the intellectually restless Jesus, who died on April 29, 1929, at the age of 29 (a curious numerological combination that may or may not hold any significance to people who look for such coincidences), Aurora would drift more and more towards the consolation of unquestioned faith. She replaced the heretical Jesus with the real Jesus. She would swear till her last breath that only her devotion to the Sacred Heart (the very same one that she brought over from her family home) made her and her three children survive her widowhood, epidemics, recession, the Japanese occupation, and the Marcos dictatorship—sixty years that she endured defiantly, turning away, like Penelope, the many suitors who still came calling and who eventually went off to marry less obstinate prospects.

The observatory was never built.

Instead, Aurora constructed a two-level house for her second daughter, my mother, in the year she was married, at age nineteen—the same house where I was born and spent all my childhood days looking west towards the setting sun in Manila Bay and watching the constellations, constant and enduring, in the early hours of our changing world.

When I was fourteen I found a magnificent volume of the life and works of Herbert Spencer, bound in the most supple calfskin leather, its gilt pages leaving an ethereal dust of gold on my fingers. The frontispiece was inscribed with the selfassured signature of Jesus Trinidad. My E XC E R P T * *

grandmother warned me that it was one of the last possessions of my grandfather, and only let me read the book in her presence, making sure I gave it the respect it deserved. Though she would later confess that she herself had never bothered to read it, such guarded veneration for the relic made me even more curious about both its owner and this philosophy that was so wondrous it should be bound in a book that was in itself a work of art. I’m not sure if Herbert Spencer had any influence in my life. All I remember is the day I discovered my grandfather’s book and how I couldn’t help staring at his signature, which looked like it had been written with a quill pen. It would take years and many personal battles for me to think the way he did, to not fear my own doubt, to shed off such ensorcelled blindness, and to trust the need to know, futile though it may be—the need that I imagine Jesus, the heretic, had genetically passed on to me.

It’s now supposed that there are anywhere from ten to twenty-six parallel universes, and that we follow our destinies in all of them simultaneously. Jesus Trinidad would get a kick out of that. In a parallel universe, he may have only slightly got the cuff of his trousers caught in those vicious elevator doors. He may have looked back and given the elevator boy a disapproving, though commiserating, look. He must have known the boy was new to the job, and remembered the day he, too, was once awkward, nervous, and young. His third child, his first son, would soon be born. He would pass on everything he knew and believed in to his three children. They’d grow up as whacked and intellectually curious as he. One of them would probably win the Nobel Prize for physics. The observatory, that wildest of dreams, would be built, and the landscape of that neighborhood—the small, ramshackle migrant houses now creeping like kudzu and overwhelming the older residences that were built on that hill some years after his death—would have developed differently as well.

Or maybe there’s only so much room in all these universes, and for him to be alive, one other being must give up his place. I could have remained within that nothingness before we are born (though why I should be chosen for this honor is surely just arrogance or egotism on my part).

Therefore, in that web of destinies, no mat-

ter how that morning in Escolta may have turned out, we would never have met. The patterns would not have interwoven. In this scenario, only two things are possible: a tragedy would profoundly alter a chain of present and future lives, or another day would have passed unnoticed in the stream of ordinariness that is human existence.

Is it true that the dead watch over us?

Would Jesus recognize me if he saw me? I wrote an entire novel around those questions when I was twenty-four, but never found an answer. Would Jesus have loved me?

In a parallel universe, he’d probably be wondering if there ever was a man who, one evening, in an effort to remember and understand, sat down to write this story, not knowing where to begin or end. This man realizes there’s a point that’s been left open, maybe unintentionally. This, in that endlessly challenging problem of knowing when to write a story, is what I call finding a way in.

I am writing this story because I’m still waiting for my grandfather’s pact to be fulfilled.

My mother recalls later meeting the last of the three friends, Tapia, who told her about that fateful evening when they made their pact. I imagine he must have spent the rest of his life waiting, with both terror and anticipation, for the message to come.

And he must have understood that singular lesson we often learn too late in life, that some things are necessarily denied.

But he, too, would be spared the suffering of a long life. He survived up to the end of the Pacific War, managing a sugar plantation in Pampanga until communist guerrillas executed him in front of his wife and children. In that horrifying glint of eternity, as the blade came down his neck, he must have realized that he was only seconds away from finding out the truth that his two friends had failed to deliver.

I have lived all these years bearing these fragments of histories. In a year I’ll be older than these three friends ever got to be. Sometimes I think my life picks up where my grandfather left off—a quest for signs and meaning whose futility is alleviated only by the pleasure of storytelling.

I keep looking at the heavens, a universe of eternal silence. Despite my weakening resolve, I keep hoping for something to be disrupted. Call it what you will—a hitch, a miracle, a snag in the works.

It’s now supposed that there are anywhere from ten to twenty-six parallel universes, and that we follow our destinies in all of them simultaneously. —ERIC GAMALINDA

S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3 E S Q U I R E 105

I HeART BoLAñO: Or, How She Became A Writer I STOLE MONEY FROM MOTHER and ran away when I was fifteen.

No, maybe sixteen or seventeen, I can’t remember. Anyway, age doesn’t really matter, for the gist of this story is true. What matters is that I was young and brazen, strong-willed and unhampered by doubt or guilt. Was I sorry that I was leaving, probably never to see my mother or father again? No. I had grown tired of Mother’s obsession with her writing, tired of trudging home from that convent school where I toiled so hard each day to please those sweaty, stinking nuns, only to find Father still in bed and Mother stomping around our rubble-strewn backyard, burning manuscripts.

SHE BURNED OTHER THINGS, TOO. Don’t ask what sorts of things.

Just things, for godsake. We didn’t own much. But Mother always found something to burn, you can be sure of that.

IT’S TORTURE HAVING A WRITER FOR A MOTHER, I can assure you.

They are the most selfish people on earth. Ready to exploit any situation, no matter how tragic. Ready to exploit any person, no matter how vulnerable—especially their own children. And all for the sake of a story, or some cryptic little poem only one or two people can understand. And it’s worse if one’s mother happens to be an unfulfilled writer, like my smart, frustrated, mongrel bitch of a mother. In the year before Father retreated into silence, he would urge Mother to send her stories and poems to Squid House, a newsletter that mysteriously began appearing on people’s doorsteps. It was rumored to be financed by the Widow Doña Conching, or perhaps the Dalai Lama. The more paranoid types claimed it was some sort of covert operation, underwritten by the President’s Security Council. Father thought it would be therapeutic for Mother to finally see her work published. But she was outraged. Squid House isn’t good enough to wipe my ass! Mother declared. Which was true. The newsletter—all eight, stapled pages of it—was mimeographed on rough, cheap paper and barely legible. Then came the accusatory tone aimed at Father: I mean, do you read it? Then at me: What about you, Nenita? Never mind, I already know the answer! Followed by her rant aimed at the world: I mean really, come to think of it, is there anyone left who reads for pure pleasure?

106 E S Q U I R E S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3

MOTHER TALKED ABOUT PLEASURE, but her writing was all about pain. She was wary of metaphors; she despised similes, adverbs, adjectives. Here were the rules of writing which she taught me: Subject. Verb. Subject. Verb. An eye for cruelty, an ear for music, an empty stomach. That’s all you really need, daughter.

FATHER HAD BEEN MINISTER OF TOURISM in our humid little archipelago, a position he’d managed to hold on to for years and years.

The President was fond of him, in spite of Father’s erratic behavior and the fact that the year I started menstruating, Father stopped going to work one day and took to his bed. Nevertheless, on the first of every month Father’s salary—a thick pile of cash stuffed into an envelope, that is—kept being delivered to our house by Mang Berto, an old man on a bicycle.

I AM NOT SURE when exactly my Mother stopped loving my father.

But I do know this. She detested having to take care of him. Mother had never been much of a nurturing type, even during the long wars. If some poor fucking wounded soul showed up at our house begging for medicine or food, she was quite capable of turning them away. My sister and I had learned to expect nothing from her, even as infants. We were scrappy, we were cunning, we were never disappointed.

A YEAR WENT BY BEFORE I DECIDED TO FLEE. By then, Father was so stupefied by sadness he never changed his clothes or took a bath.

Mother and I had to do everything for him, sponging the flaps and folds and creases of his body with soap and water while he sat hunched over in the tub like some big, mopey baby. Then we’d dress Father in his tattered pajamas and half-carry, half-drag him back to bed. And though he had no appetite, Father’s antidepressants— an innocuous term, since he remained frozen in a state of depression—made him fatter and sadder by the day. Our house—devoid of laughter and light, devoid of warmth in spite of the unrelenting tropical heat—became his tomb. Dr. Bolaño—a man with a gaunt, sorrowful face, a cigarillo, and courtly manners—made weekly visits to check on Father and give him protein injections. How are

we feeling today, Sebastian? Dr. Bolaño would say in his dry, gentle voice. Ready for your vitamins? Same, always the same concerned greeting and the same non-reaction from my father, who lay on that gray bed with a faraway look, his mouth twitching. The injections sometimes animated Father for a few blessed hours and he would fall out of bed and stumble slowly through the house, as if experiencing those barren rooms for the first time. He discovered me reading Monique Wittig’s Les Guerilleres one afternoon when I had nothing better to do. I had found the book while snooping through Mother’s eclectic library. Raymond Chandler, Jane Austen, Nick Joaquin, the Marquis de Sade—excellent afternoon reading for bored, petulant, Catholic schoolgirls. Father cracked the tiniest of smiles, just like you’re doing right now. (Is it my snooping which amuses you, or the title of the book I was reading back then?

Les Guerilleres! Remember that one, Daddy. Monique made quite a splash in the Seventies with that funny little book of hers.)

FATHER SEEMED CONFUSED and unsure of who I was. It’s me, Nenita. Your daughter, I said. Won’t you stay and talk to me? My loud voice must’ve rattled him and he fled from my room. Why won’t he speak? I later asked Mother. Because the bastard feels sorry for himself, she answered.

HOW I MISSED FE. Twin, traitor, tormentor, mirror. How did I manage to endure without my sister there to conspire with and console me? Her name—Fe! Faith! Felicidad! —was never uttered after she was taken away. That dreaded question—Is she alive, or dead?—was never asked. Mother’s only concession to her own grief over my sister’s abduction was to set up an altar in one corner of the diningroom. It was rather morbid: three votive candles and a garland of dried marigolds arranged before a framed photograph of Fe in her green party dress, as if she were already dead. I had been cut out of the picture. The photograph was flanked on one side by a tiny statue of the Virgin Mary carved out of bone, while on the other loomed a much more imposing, solemn rice god carved out of black mahogany. On those rare occasions when Mother bothered to cook for the two of us (Father having stopped eating and retreated to his Led Zeppelin), she made sure a plate of mango, saltfish and rice was laid out as an offering for my sister. And, in spite of all the ceremony and ritual, it was understood that we were never to speak of Fe. The one time I couldn’t bear to keep quiet any longer and dared to ask that dreaded question: Is Fe alive, or dead? Mother reached across the table and slapped me hard across the cheek. Then she resumed eating.

I KNEW ABOUT THE OLD CIGAR-BOXES hidden under the floor, full of money my parents had set aside in the event of another coup d’etat or future catastrophe which always seemed to be lurking around the corner. My sister’s rape and abduction, the chaos and violent uncertainty of our daily lives had taught them not to put their faith in banks or armies or the Church or much of anything at all, and to always be prepared to flee. When Father succumbed to his catatonic despair, Mother saved whatever she could from his salary—which the old man on the bicycle continued to bring us once a month. She filled one cigar-box with crisp black-market hundred-dollar bills, then another. And another box after that, and so on. I felt good knowing the money was under those floorboards, though I knew it was fake. Plenty of counterfeit money stashed in those cigar-boxes. Plenty of counterfeit money and nothing to buy. Our luckless island republic had been looted over and over again during the long wars. No imports, no exports. The

state-run supermarkets were out of pork chops and powdered milk. The fish glowed and swam in an ocean of bloody shit. We all knew that.

MY WAY OF GETTING THROUGH EACH SLEEPLESS NIGHT was to spy on her. From various hiding-places, I watched Mother sip whiskey and smoke her cigarettes. Sometimes she’d sit at her desk, turn on a lamp and open her writing-journal. A few lines here and there, then Mother would stop. Pour herself more whiskey, smoke another cigarette, stare out the window at the sweltering black nothing beyond. Sometimes she’d pull out the charred photo album which we had managed to retrieve from the ashes of our old house, which the soldiers had torched before disappearing into the jungle with my sister. Mother stared intently at those glossy images as if trying to unravel some clue.

SOMETIMES MOTHER WOULD open the door to my father’s room and just stand there, peering into the shadows where he lay sleeping. After a few seconds, she’d close the door and walk away. It was getting really boring, but when it came to Mother, I knew I had to be patient. On one of those excruciating nights, she finally entered his room. She left the door ajar, so it was easy to creep up and spy on her. Perhaps she knew I was there, all along. She bent over my father’s bed and pressed her mouth to his. It was my daily job—since Mother couldn’t stand it—to rub a thick salve of vitamin E on those blistered, bleeding lips. But tonight, my aloof, ungenerous mother didn’t seem to mind. She kissed her comatose husband for a long time, what seemed to me a thrilling eternity. Then she removed her clothes and got in bed with him, naked. She lay on her back under the covers, motionless and staring up at the ceiling until morning. My father never stirred or made a sound. I saw it with my own eyes and I wondered if—no, I wished—he was dead.

THE MONSOONS CAME IN AUGUST, along with the waking dreams of my sister in which I saw her beheaded, wearing the green party dress now stained with blood. I kept my gory visions a secret and began to plan my escape.

IT RAINED FOR WEEKS, torrential rains and winds blowing at fifty to a hundred miles an hour in the gray afternoons. There were power outages, there was looting, there were outbreaks of dysentery and cholera in the encroaching shantytowns of our great, crumbling city. I remember all that. The day I decided to leave, Mother was out on some mysterious errand. Or so she said. Mother had changed in the past few weeks. She was distant and preoccupied, but also generous and kind. I suspected a lover in her life. Why else would my mother go out and brave those dangerous, flooded streets?

MY JUNKIE FATHER remained shut off in his bedroom as usual.

Through the closed door I heard silvery snatches of Led Zeppelin’s Rain Song. Then Stairway To Heaven. I leaned my forehead against that door and listened for a few seconds, then said goodbye.

Of course Father couldn’t hear me. I glanced at the clock on the stove. Mother would be home soon. Gusts of wind and rain blew in through the screened windows. The floors were soaked and had already started to buckle.

MOTHER WOULD BE HOME SOON. It was now or never. Nenita run out that door, Nenita don’t look back. « CONTINUED

S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3 E S Q U I R E 107

« CONTINUED

I WADED OUT TO WHAT USED TO BE STAR APPLE ROAD,

now a steadily rising river in front of our sinking house. Stuffed in my bra was my fake passport and the money I had stolen. Of course it had occurred to me that there was no way to get to the airport, that I could be thrown in jail and—because I was female and young—tortured, raped and killed just for the fun of it. That’s what happened to Mary, Doña Conching’s daughter. But that’s another story. Anyway—I took sips from a flask of milk and Tanduay rum to calm myself, hoping for a miracle. In the distance was a solitary figure rowing a canoe. HELP! I shrieked, waving my arms. As the boat drew closer, I soon recognized Dr. Bolaño.

He peered at me from beneath a battered Panama hat. Is that Sebastian’s daughter, Nenita?

Yes, I answered. Sebastian and Nena’s daughter.

And why is the foolish daughter of Sebastian and Nena standing out here in a flood?

I have to get to the airport. Will you be so kind as to take me?

The airport? Have you lost your mind?

Maybe, I said. But so what.

Dr. Bolaño held out his hand. I scrambled into the flimsy canoe, which almost tipped over. He handed me an oar and we rowed in silence past the partially-submerged Temple Of Saint Lucy’s Eyes, past the Orphanage Of The Innocents and the School Of All Nations, past Linda’s Unisex Beauty Parlor, past Doña Conching’s baroque, two-story house (still standing, though there were no signs of the grieving woman) and what was left of the Café Taboo (all you could see was a sliver of roof ). My arms felt as if they were going to fall out of their sockets, but I forced myself to keep rowing.

We witnessed one grisly wonder after another. A pair of bloated corpses—a woman and a tiny child of indeterminate sex—floated face down in the soupy brown water. Then came a wounded horse, eyes bulging and nostrils flaring, struggling to swim for its life before being swept away in a tangle of fallen trees. I surprised myself by bursting into tears.

Don’t cry, Dr. Bolaño said. It will only make you tired and we’ve still got a long way to go.

Life is shit, Doctor.

Yeah, so? Dr. Bolaño shrugged, though his tone was not unkind.

You’ve been to my shitty gloomy house and seen my frozen fat fuck of a despairing father, how dare you tell me not to cry!

After a while he said: You’re right, Nenita.

That’s why I’ve got to get away! Far away! I was compelled to shout because of the howling winds.

Assuming that planes are still taking off, where exactly is far away?

Amsterdam! Amsterdam by way of Reykjavik, Iceland!

Dr. Bolaño burst out laughing. It was a deep, unsettling, bitter laugh. What beautiful teeth he had. What a beautiful, sorrowful man he was. I felt the itch of desire. Why was I drawn to such sorrow? Amsterdam, he murmured, looking as if he were seeing me for the first time. Poets, hashish, snow and…clove cigarettes! How I envy you. How I wish I were young again, little Nena.

I hate my name, I snarled.

Of course you do.

I’m going to change it.

To what?

I don’t know yet. But I will change it—maybe to something Icelandic.

He kept staring at me. My arms were heavy with pain. I wondered if my house was underwater and if my mother had ever made it home. If so, would she save my oblivious, blissed-out father from drowning?

108 E S Q U I R E S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3

I stared back at the doctor, my itch of desire intensifying.

Would you like to come home with me, Nenita? Dr. Bolaño asked, reading my mind.

A HUMID DREAM, in which we disembark from the canoe at the foot of a mountain. Our movements are languid, as if we are already lovers. The canoe we tether to an overhanging tree that juts out from the mountain. Rain slacking off as darkness quickly descends.

In between violent kisses, we slog our way up the muddy mountain trail which leads to the doctor’s Quonset hut. What I remember after all these years is the cement floor, the austere military cot on which he slept, the creepy oil painting which hung from a crooked angle on one wall. The painting was of a flame-haired woman on a sofa, with two little flame-haired girls on either side of her. The smiling woman and her smiling daughters were painted without eyes. The unframed canvas was signed “RB, 1975.”

Is this your family? I ask Dr. Bolaño.

A unit is meant to be broken, he responds.

I stare at him, uncomprehending.

The title of the painting, Dr. Bolaño explains. If you look on the back of the canvas, the rather obvious title reads: A Unit Is Meant To Be Broken.

WE STOOD IN AWKWARD SILENCE UNTIL I LOST PATIENCE and finally decided to act. I felt nauseous and exhilarated as I peeled off my soaking-wet clothes. I had never been naked in front of a man.

Not just any man, mind you, but an old one like Dr. Bolaño, who must’ve been at least forty or fifty, which was ancient to me. I lay back on his cot, waiting for the inevitable to happen. The doctor scrutinized my imperfect yet voluptuous body, his pants unzipped but still on. I saw that his penis was erect. My god, I thought. What if he kills me afterward.

How old are you, Nenita? Dr. Bolaño asked.

Almost seventeen, I lied.

You will grow up to be even prettier than Pearl, he said. Uttering my mother’s quaint name.

So it’s been you all along, I said. Mother’s secret lover.

I won’t lie to you, Dr. Bolaño murmured, tracing the jagged white scar on my lower belly. What happened here? He asked, but I refused to answer. You haven’t had a baby by caesarean, have you?

Don’t be an idiot, I said. Can’t you tell I’m a virgin?

He sighed and stroked my bush of pubic fur as if it were a pet, which was erotic for about ten seconds then began to annoy me.

Is fucking going to make me cry? I asked.

I won’t lie to you. It can hurt. Dr. Bolaño pried my legs open and slowly inserted his middle finger into my vagina. You’re very dry, he said.

Ouch! I cried. Ouch, ouch, ouch.

Would you like me to stop?

No, said I. MY EYES STAYED WIDE OPEN THROUGHOUT THE MESSY ORDEAL. I thought of how a pig once squealed when my mother cut its throat, in the same way I squealed when Dr. Bolaño thrust his penis into me. Though he tried to be careful, my body went rigid. You must try to cooperate, Nenita. His use of the word “cooperate” made me angry and I tensed up even more.

Unless you want me to stop. Would you like me to stop?

No, said I. Are you sure?

No, said I.

LIFE BY THE DrOP

BY MARIA CARMEN SARMIENTO

MYLA EMBRACED Lenin and his electric blue worms. His bony bronze cheekbones rested on her chest while phosphorescent blue grubs buzzed and wriggled at the statue’s base, like so many Jungian intimations of death and decay. But Myla mistrusted Western thought and preferred Buddhist allegory.

A distraught woman went to the Buddha. She had lost her firstborn, and only beloved son. The Buddha gently told her to ask each of her neighbors for a grain of rice. But the rice grain must come from a house that had never known death, or suffered the pain of loss. She returned empty-handed. Finally she got it: no one is spared. Death finds us all, or like Myla the dreamer, you seek it.

Seamlessly, she segued into wakefulness.

On her stomach, beneath her father’s hospital bed, she whiffed shabu. The fumes were the expirations of angel breath. Her father’s urine bag cast a gentle golden glow, and diffused the harsh constancy of the fluorescent lights. She kept the burner flame away from the vinyl mattress and the starched hospital sheets. She was cautious even when stoned. Her friends would have marvelled: “You couldn’t even wait till you got out of that hospital to toot. Astig!”

A maid was usually the bantay, but Myla had volunteered to stay.

“You were always the favorite, really your daddy’s girl,” said Aunty Luisa, her father’s mistress who seldom came because Myla’s mother Marita Pangan Cantos had ordered the maids not to allow her in.

Myla believed since she was in the same

room, she was still looking after her father and fulfilling her filial duty. She hid her burner, a hollowed out felt tip marker, on top of the medicine cabinet. Her father looked at her pleadingly when she came out of the bathroom.

“Can I get you anything, Doody-yey?” she asked with a chirpiness born of guilt.

Doody-yey was a play on Daddy-oh. She was surprised to hear herself using her mother’s term of endearment from long ago. Luigi frowned, and Myla realized he was drugged beyond speech. As a good daughter, she rubbed his feet.

She was his eldest child. He’d wanted her to become a doctor. Every good family should have a doctor and a lawyer, to keep all the bases covered. Luigi was a lawyer and called it a dirty rotten business.

“Don’t become an abogaga, hija. You’ll end up a “chamber practitioner,”” referring to those bright young things, showing off their legs and hinting at cleavage, who paid personal calls on judges in their chambers.

“Remember in the Philippines, Justice can be bought,” he winked. ”Pera lang ang katapat niyan.”

Secretly Myla laughed at the well intentioned in NA (Narcotics Anonymous) meetings who thought to console her by assuring her none of this was her fault.

They had a family disease as did everyone else at stoner show’n’tell, so welcome to the club. She was comforted by a grandiose sense of dynastic tragedy, of the genetic inevitability of her fate. Ironically, families believed their addicts were clean so long as they went to meetings. Meetings

were the best place to score. Everyone they needed to know was there.

Luigi’s soles were tender like a baby’s from being in bed for so long. She hoped he wouldn’t notice how clammy her hands were. Then his legs quivered like a cockroach’s on its back and he made a noise like air escaping from a balloon. The machines went off and Myla was pushed aside while the medical staff worked on her father. She counted breaths to compose herself. Get in touch with your feelings, the counselors always reminded her. All she knew was that right then she was not in pain. That’s how she knew the drugs were working.

The tears came much later. She was so wired on the day her father died.

MARITA CANTOS got twice her portion of sympathy, now that she was a widow and her oldest daughter was a useless druggie.

Myla knew many went to the wake to see how they were coping in the aftermath of Luigi’s bankruptcy. Whenever Marita left the chapel, Luigi Cantos’s mistress Aunty Luisa discreetly took her place. She was Marita’s distant cousin so she had a right as a relative by affinity.

Myla was sober during the three day wake. She restrained herself from joining the men drinking. How she longed for a shot when older relations ostentatiously scrutinized her then asked: “Are you being a good girl? You went to St. Claire’s, one of the best Catholic schools. How could you turn out to be adik-adik—and you the eldest yet?”

The relatives who did this « CONTINUED

S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3 E S Q U I R E 109

« CONTINUED were close enough to bring

the bereaved Cantos family envelopes of abuloy, so Myla held her tongue. She would not take them beyond their limited logic and dull conventionality to explain, “Those of us who do shit know the only reason others don’t, is wala silang pambili.

Inggit lang sila.”

The Cantos finances could not afford a secretary for Marita, so as the eldest, Myla had custody over the envelopes and helped herself. She considered it a form of tithing for her father. He wouldn’t want her to suffer. Luigi had always said marijuana was an underutilized cash crop and that if drugs weren’t contraband, they would be so cheap that addicts wouldn’t have to resort to stealing and prostitution to get their junk.

PATIENCE WAS A VIRTUE Myla learned while waiting to score. She got her drugs in San Miguel Village, adjacent to Bel Air where the Cantos family had lived until the foreclosure and eviction. Her pusher had dealt drugs since high school, and was called the Rock Star. The joke was that he had majored in this. For special clients, like the woman senator who worried about her weight, he delivered. He styled himself as the senator’s personal chef, cooking up special recipes just for her. He might be gone for hours, and the ordinary mortals who could only afford tingi, just had to cool their heels.

The Rock Star’s mother was the perfect hostess. She acted as though Myla and the other customers were regular visitors. She never served refreshments but offered newspaper and set out games.

“Are you going to blow or to toot?” she’d cheerily ask, and considerately switch off the electric fan.

Scoring was not without risks. Once Myla went alone and was ushered into the Rock Star’s bedroom cum business office. It was lined with shelves and glass cabinets full of model cars, planes, army tanks, and ships.

Tools and paints were neatly stacked in wire racks. The Rock Star loved to tinker when he was high. He offered samples to good customers and as a guarantee of his junk’s quality. If asked, he issued provisional receipts registered under a talyer he owned.

Like any legitimate business, he gave gifts to regular customers at Christmas: long handled scoopers fabricated in the talyer.

E XC E R P T * *

The Rock Star came out of his bathroom, with his limp penis hanging below his shirt tails. Myla pretended not to notice. He carefully weighed a rock on a digital laboratory scale, set out his Bausch & Lomb test tube, and asked if she wanted to turn on first. Myla politely declined.

Since she wasn’t a big buyer, she knew that this unusual courtesy was a prelude to something else. She remembered her father’s derogatory remarks about “chamber practitioners.” In her hurry to leave, she forgot her provisional receipt. She filed these as she had a budget for shit. Her father liked to stress that planning was everything. Even though he had failed, she still wanted him to be proud of her.

ANOTHER ST. CLAIRE’S girl used even more than Myla did. She would have had no compunctions about paying the Rock Star with other currency as that’s how she got by. Cecile Rodes had transferred to St. Claire’s during their senior year in high school. She had been kicked out of her previous high school for misbehavior.

Her parents were strict. She used Myla’s name or some other classmate’s, when she wanted to escape to be with a boy. When they found out how she had lied to them all along, her father and a brother had held her down while her mother shaved her head. Cecile just wore a knitted cap and told strangers she was having chemo. They were so much nicer to her then. A bleeding heart teacher even wanted to hold a concert to raise money for her treatment.

She thought the St. Claire’s girls were monsters when they laughed at her.

Myla considered the time that Cecile had gone with her to celebrate her father’s first birthday since he’d died as the start of their true friendship. It was really Pepe Cuaruesma’s party. Myla hadn’t told anyone it was her father’s birthday that day because they would wonder why she not celebrating with her family. She didn’t want to have to explain how her mother blamed their father for going bankrupt and losing their big house, or about Aunty Luisa and Kuya Boy and their messed up lives. So she sat alone at the hotel suite’s dining table, drinking Southern Comfort in honor of Luigi Cantos who had first taught her to drink.

Pepe Cuaresma had told Myla he wanted to date Cecile so she’d brought her along.

Cecile was probably why Myla was invited.

Pepe was alternately shy and bold by turns.

“Ask her what I need to do to get her to sleep with me,” he whispered. Earlier he had bragged that he kissed the hands of whores but slapped around the high-born Forbes Park women. He said that was how they wanted to be treated.

Myla asked Cecile: “Hey, Pepe wants to know what it’ll take to get you to go to bed with him.”

“Cocaine,” she replied and demurely smiled.

“Is that all?” Pepe giggled. He was always loaded and made the longest run-ways as befitted an heir to the Cuaresma Shipping Lines and sugar trade, but he always shared.

To show off how much he had, he tooted a whole gram each time. His glass pipes were hand-blown and bent into amusing shapes, such as a lightning bolt or an electric guitar, by a State University lab rat.

Pepe took Cecile into one of the bedrooms. His older brother Pablo with his girlfriend Mocha was in the other bedroom. Then a bellboy came to the door.

Pepe had lit lots of candles for romance since he and Cecile were strangers. The illumination cast their shadows sharply against the balcony doors’ diaphanous floor to ceiling curtains. The hotel desk got complaints about their fornicating silhouettes being visible from the parking lot. The bodyguards were too embarrassed to tell Pepe to put out the candles, so Myla did. Pepe returned to the dining room without Cecile.

“I didn’t screw her because she’s starting to have her period,” he said. “But, man, can she eat.”

Pablo and his girlfriend Mocha followed. She glowered at Cecile and Myla.

She believed they were both after Pablo since being older, he would administer the Cuaresma fortune. Since the girls were not getting along, they went to a club. Tiny bottles of water sold for more than beer to the thirsty kids high on Ecstasy. Pepe sullenly watched Cecile dance with two married movie actors. The Cuaresma brothers’ bodyguards stayed at another table. They were not professionally trained but the sons of retired sugar mill employees. They still addressed Pablo and Pepe affectionately as “Toto.” Neither brother was much over five feet tall. They had been known to threaten to shoot other people or each

THE HOTEL DESK GOT COMPLAINTS ABOUT THEIR FORNICATING SILHOUETTES BEING VISIBLE FROM THE PARKING LOT. —MARIA CARMEN SARMIENTO

110 E S Q U I R E S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3

E XC E R P T * *

THERE IS NOTHING LIKE BEING A POOR RELATION TO WHET ONE’S APPETITE FOR WEALTH AND STATUS. —MARIA CARMEN SARMIENTO

« CONTINUED other. Thus the bodyguards had to protect other people from them, or themselves from each other.

The society page columnist known as Jules swooped upon them with a sylph-like boy in tow. He introduced him as Cupcake, and loudly proclaimed that his real name was Donato but to call him Donat for short had lewd connotations in Filipino. Cupcake looked like he was still in high school and asked if he could take their photo for the society pages. The Cuaresma brothers agreed to be photographed sitting down to mask their shortness. Jules knew Myla’s mother from the days when they still had the money to belong to what passed for Filipino high society. He asked Myla to lend him her brassiere so that Cupcake could wear it while they had sex in the tiny room off the club manager’s office. Myla obliged. When they gave it back, the elastic was still warm.

“He ripped the bed sheet while he was doing me,” Jules whooped. Cupcake smiled upon him benignly.

The actors wanted to take Cecile with them. Myla refused. Cecile had told her parents they were together, so she was responsible for her. Pepe didn’t care. He had unmanned himself by failing to penetrate Cecile. His mood further darkened to see these two tall actors after her. The actors had told Cecile she might be a model, but Myla was firm. Cecile cursed at her half heartedly. The actors decided it wasn’t worth it to make a scene and left.

In the Cuaresma’s van, Cecile rambled that she didn’t want to go home. One night, she came home drunk, and her father had made her take a shower, then had pushed her out into the yard and locked her out of the house with her only in her panties. He was a born again Christian who made them pray the angelus in the bathroom because he considered their Catholic rituals demonic. He’d hit Cecile’s mother on the nape when he didn’t like the way she smelled.

“God! What is she on? Tell her to shut up. So much negativity,” Mocha rolled her eyes. She was jealous that the actors had noticed Cecile and not her.

“Whatever he does to you, he is still your father,” Pablo chimed in. “Look at Myla—she lost her father and that’s a real bummer.”

It wasn’t really Cecile’s house but her aunt’s that they brought her back to.

Beside the ostentatiously modernist box of glass and steel, Cecile and her family lived in a veritable hovel. Myla only caught on when she had come by early to pick her up, and Cecile wasn’t waiting outside. The maid at the big house innocently led her to where Cecile really lived. Myla pretended not to notice the alarm and shame in Cecile’s eyes when she came to the door. She’d been found out but Myla could hardly gloat. It had been all the talk of St. Claire’s when the sheriff of Makati had evicted the Cantos Family from Bel-Air. A blind item about their disgrace had appeared in the Philippine Daily Inquirer. The Cantos family had moved into a rented apartment and sold off their surplus to the American-leaving junk dealers of Bangkal.

No one dared to ask Myla about their new housing arrangements as she had a gun, a little señorita Luigi had given her when she entered high school.

The cats at St. Claire’s said Cecile Rodes had the soul of a social climber in a nobody’s body. There is nothing like being a poor relation to whet one’s appetite for wealth and status. The drugs made the ache of unfulfilled hungers go away for a little while.

THE FIRST TIME MYLA WAS IN REHAB, she wrote an essay about how doing drugs was not unlike climbing Mt. Everest or cross stitching a sampler: because they were there and she could. Being wired gave her a sense of definition, purpose and focus that would be religious if she were at all spiritual. She transcended the ordinary: colors, sounds, and textures were enhanced. Her whole being was magnified.

Super human, she needed nothing—not even food or sleep.

Myla considered their family’s former travel agent Pompet Marasigan as the epitome of the fully functional addict. He made enough to support his habit and to send his brother to a maritime academy and his sister to nursing school. By day, he was a supervisor for a freight forwarder but in the evenings, he moonlighted as a folk singer. Working women on a night out invited him to sit at their tables. Sometimes he got taken home. At the very least, he ate his fill of pulutan and drank for free.

He also danced at bridal showers. The highlight was when the bride-to-be slipped a condom onto his erect penis. It was hard

to stay tumescent while surrounded by squealing and chattering women.

Pompet claimed the power of mind over matter more than drugs. All that pelvic grinding was hard on his haunches and he preferred being a tour guide. Sexually ambiguous Japanese tourists were especially generous. Aside from his regular fee and the standard tip, they gifted him with expensive wristwatches, electronic gadgets and their left-over pesos. He wasn’t good looking at all in the conventional sense, with a scraggly beard and teeth so large his purplish lips couldn’t fully cover them.

Pompet said he exuded animal magnetism that unfailingly attracted men and women. All he had to do was remain in one place and someone would eventually come over and ask him out. The Luneta roller skating rink, where a FAMAS award winning actor had once picked him up, was a favorite hunting ground. Pompet moved freely among the social classes. He had the right gentle touch to shuffle heroin in and out of the President’s sister-in-law’s veins. She was a desperate degenerate who believed she wouldn’t get addicted this way. This in and out method was also how she supposedly liked her sex, with the ejaculate spread on her crepey, collagenfilled thighs as if she were still of an age to procreate. The drugs nurtured her dreams of eternal youth.

MYLA CREDITED HER ANIMAL INSTINCTS with keeping her from getting busted. The danger was often imagined. An unexpected flash of lights, a car slowing down, a trick of speech, could cause her to scamper into hiding or to bring out her gun. Myla experimented being pharmaceutically wellrounded and open-minded. As in communion, she tried whatever was offered.

When she was soul-searching, she brewed angel’s trumpet or datura tea, plucked off the trees from the slopes of Mt. Makiling.

Instead of a shaman visiting her dreams, there were the persistent nightmares of Lenin and his electric blue worms.

Then came the call from Cecile’s mother to Marita Cantos. Cecile couldn’t stand and Mrs. Rodes feared a brain tumor had paralyzed her. She was also whimpering about a dormitory until Mrs. Rodes realized she was babbling about Dormicum.

She claimed Myla was her source. The Dormicum had come from « CONTINUED

S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3 E S Q U I R E 111

« CONTINUED a boyfriend but Myla had to take the fall.

Marita Cantos was angrier about being called by Cecile’s mother than confirming that Myla was still on drugs even after that costly rehab that was more like a spa. A socially inferior stranger knew about her daughter’s addiction before she did. Worse, the private rehab didn’t give refunds.

Since they were broke, Myla was committed, with Cecile, to a government-run rehab in a prison complex. The inmates called it the Country Club. The Colonel who ran it ordered Marita not to visit Myla for the first three months to show tough love and to allow their treatment to take.

The Country Club seemed more concerned about sex than substance abuse.

Some of the girls hadn’t been using drugs at all but were just wild or clinically depressed. Now they had to take medication.

The poster girl for the misfits was Grace, a niece of the Colonel’s wife. She was such a dyke, she embarrassed their stereotypically heterosexual family. Grace refused to take the psychotropic drugs and hormones that were supposed to transform her because they made her feel worse. She wanted to die. She jumped down a stairwell, but only suffered a sprain. The Colonel had her tied down to her bed.

“Now I can no longer masturbate,” she wailed, totally desolate and beaten as she tried to raise her arms heavenward in horrible supplication.

Cecile and Myla were in the same dormitory. As part of their treatment, they had to do their laundry and clean up after themselves, but those who had money or influence, got the poorer girls to do their work. When Pepe and Pablo Cuaresma turned up in the men’s dormitory, they paid for Myla’s maid service as she was their childhood friend and they were appalled that one of their class should have to do menial work. But all of them still had to wake up at 5 a.m., run around the track and do calisthenics. They were addicts with good muscle tone.

There were weekly socials. On those days, they didn’t have to line up in the courtyard, with tin trays in hand. They were in their inmate uniforms but there were five males to every female. Those who were better off, had their birthdays catered. Money made all the difference.

The Cuaresma brothers had been through Tagaytay, Hazelden and Betty Ford so the Country Club was the seventh spiral of hell. Their parents seldom visited but sent maids with their week’s supplies.

112 E S Q U I R E S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3

Cigarettes weren’t allowed, being a gateway drug but the brothers hid their stash in the hollow metal legs of their beds. Pablo had always been savvier and taught a maid to pass him a little plastic bag of cocaine hidden in her cheek when they would French kiss. Their food was wrapped in foil which they re-used to melt shabu. Myla’s father was right: pera lang ang katapat niyan. The maid always had cash to make the guards look the other way.

CECILE GOT CAUGHT in the women’s bathroom, getting banged by a guard. He was married to one of the social workers.

He came to work the day after, with a red, raw bald patch on the front of his head and a bruise on his forehead where his wife had whacked him with a dos por dos. The incident report in Cecile’s records referred to inappropriate contact but the contactee was not named. Cecile was put in isolation.

A favored dormer known as Brunhilde was tasked with administering discipline.

This was done out of love, said the Colonel, tough love, but love just the same.

Cecile was such a rotten criminal. Her emotions were always on the surface. She glowed with self-importance when ever some big shot addict noticed her. She practically strutted and preened so she kept getting caught with contraband, like love notes or cigarettes. Cecile wept whenever they confiscated a love note and begged to be allowed to keep this. But her punishment had to be so complete that she had no right to happiness. For such infractions, E XC E R P T * *

Brunhilde made Cecile do push-ups or jog barefoot around the track at noon.

But Cecile never learned but kept herself open to all romantic overtures and advances, even from guys whom as she used to say in feckless wonder at her lowered standards, “I wouldn’t have laid a fart on him outside.” As the months went by, her hunger for shit and status was transformed and purified into an indiscriminate, all encompassing hunger for love where there was neither shit nor status for her. She even started kissing the girls.

Hunger and thirst. Awake then asleep. In motion and at rest. Their existence in the Country Club was prescribed and circumscribed by those who claimed to care for them better than they could ever care for themselves for they had all been judged and found wanting.

Then Grace, the thwarted masturbator, drank Eskinol. It was never determined whether this was done for the faint alcoholic buzz, or if it was another puny, misguided suicide attempt. Nonetheless, the entire women’s dormitory was punished. The water and lights were shut off while they were all taking their communal shower.

“What now?” Myla asked. They were all lathered up and shivering, but none of them dared to dry off or to leave the bathroom, or a worse punishment might befall them.

“We can tell jokes,” said Cecile. “We can just make kwento. We can even sing.”

And she started to hum. She was right.

There must always be a time to sing.

She wanted to die. She jumped down a stairwell, but only suffered a sprain. —MARIA CARMEN SARMIENTO

ORPHEUS BY

RENO EVANGELISTA

AND THEN HE ARGUES that it goes like this too: he gets out of the house and they shoot him. He discovers the secret while falling down the stairs. He picks the amulet out of a tiger’s mouth. He gets constipated. He learns to play an instrument, shades the windows, kills a giant, crosses a river, meets a melancholy king who shows him to a velvet room where the princess lies nubile on cloth fine-spun as ghosts saying “No. Get out.

Just who do you think you are?”

Reno Evangelista is thirty-one thousand, two hundred and twenty-nine words into writing his first novel.

First Sight of Snow

BY IAN ROSALES CASOCOT FOR

KAIJA KORPI

FIVE DAYS BEFORE I LEFT TOKYO for Hokkaido for the winter break, I told Kazunori about what was troubling me about myself over a certain encounter I had the previous day with a woman—a Filipina—in Kichijoji while I was out shopping for groceries.

“Kichijoji is quite far for grocery shopping,” he said in Nihongo.

“You live in Musashi-sakai.”

We were both standing and clinging to our straps as our train swerved every which way.

“It’s only a bike-ride away. And Musashi-sakai has no grocery store with food from the Philippines on sale,” I replied.

“Well. That’s understandable,” Kazunori said. His grin was wide.

Kazunori was tall. Handsome. With a dash of velvet in his hair, Harajuku-style, and always with a faraway look in his eyes. He was in my graduate poetry class under Prof. Takada, and I remembered him most for calling Pablo Neruda a “sentimental old fool,” much to the consternation of the old sensei.

We were on the Chuo Line, the densha bound for Musashi-sakai from Shinjuku. We had both taken off for the train before the late afternoon crush, quickly navigating the intricate caverns of Shinjuku eki towards the platform to wait for the orange-banded appointment for home—at least, what felt like home these days. In that late November air, a sense of winter was afoot. The day was nippy. Some grayness was descending. I looked up and there it was, everywhere over Tokyo: autumn in withdrawal, all the gold turning by the hour, slowly, to slate. No snow just yet. I have never seen snow.

It was a common enough day. Nothing much was of interest. Tokyo bored me. I suppose. But it was the day itself; there was a sense of depletion to it. The sunlight was all wrong. It glinted off the gray of Tokyo’s concrete maelstrom, diffusing the bursts of color in the landscape, the electronic magic. I was left to stare blankly into the mass of people surrounding me, thinking only of the bed that waited for me in my dorm room in Dai Ni Danshiryoo.

“So what was it?” Kazunori asked.

“I was tired,” I began telling him. “But I wanted so much to eat Montaño Spanish sardines. It was a craving of sorts, if you understand what I mean.” He nodded, and I continued. “Anyway, these are sardines preserved and packed in glass and not tin,” I hurriedly explained to Kazunori. “They’re from this town down south of the Philippines, in Mindanao, from a place called Dipolog. Anyway, this brand of sardines is something I love to eat—with rice, it becomes a small feast. Just five or six fries of them, packed and floating in that chili, in that vegetable oil…”

I closed my eyes in the memory. My mouth watered.

“So what happened?” Kazunori insisted.

“So I went to Kichijoji, to this grocery store I knew sold these sardines.”

“And then?”

“There was this woman standing by the entrance to the store.

I knew she was Filipina. She looked Filipina. But she had this big hair, full make-up. Really put on thickly. Her lips were huge under all that rouge. She had a fur coat on, if I remember it right. And I was walking towards her, and she was looking at me—and she was smiling. I think she was probably thinking, looking at me, ‘This boy looks Filipino.’ And she was smiling and smiling. She was talking to this other woman, a smaller one. I can’t remember exactly what that other woman looked like. I was hurrying on. I think I decided I did not want to make eye contact.”

“Why?” “I don’t know. She just looked too loud. I thought she was a Japayuki.”

“What’s that?”

I laughed at the question. I took a deep breath, and told Kazunori what a Japayuki meant. A Filipina bargirl who comes to Japan as a kind of entertainer—perhaps of all sorts. I think I made it sound too sleazy, because Kazunori was shaking his head. He looked quite sad, but also interested. His eyes gleamed.

“So I went in. Told myself I wanted to avoid the woman as much as I could. I was hoping not to bump into her. The store was huge anyway, and the aisles were wide. I love shopping in this Kichijoji store. They always have these generous tidbits of food and drinks all laid out in the aisles. Samples for you to eat. Sometimes when I get too hungry and my yen’s running low, I go there.” Kazunori laughed at that. “I became busy with my purchases. I was going from section to section, thinking about what I must get, taking care not to strain my budget for the month. Tokyo’s expensive, you know that. And then I turn one corner—” “And your shopping cart bumps into her shopping cart,” Kazunori said.

“Not exactly. I bumped into her ass, was what,” I said.

Kazunori was grinning.

Perhaps he could not believe I knew the Japanese word for “ass.”

“In any case, I said, ‘Gomen nasai.’ I was sorry, after all—but also I was kicking myself for not being able to avoid her.”

“And then what happened?”

“Well, she was smiling at me, again—with that thick, fat, red smile of hers. She looked older up close, and her hair, really, was much too big. Like Farrah Fawcett’s, only bigger. We stopped there, right in the middle of the section that had Filipino products displayed— those Spanish sardines, some miswa, some bulad, some—“ “What are those?”

“Never mind what those are. She asked me a question.”

“Which was?”

“She asked me, in Tagalog, ‘Kababayan ka ba?’ That means, roughly, ‘Are you a compatriot?’ She was asking me if I were Filipino.”

“And what did you say?”

I hesitate. “But first, please, don’t judge me.”

Kazunori begins laughing.

“What did you say?”

“I said—and I don’t know why, it just came to me, like, out of the blue. I replied, ‘No, I’m Malaysian.’”

Kazunori could not help himself. He was laughing. The Chuo Line was thick with passengers, and so we became a spectacle for a while, standing there in the middle of the carriage as the train hurtled on, until everyone became disinterested again and went back to what they were doing.

“Why did you say that you were Malaysian?” Kazunori asked.

“I have no idea,” I was frowning. “It just came out « CONTINUED

S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3 E S Q U I R E 113

« CONTINUED of my mouth, just like that.”

“Totemo baka desu ne,” he said, smiling, ruffling my hair.

“But that’s not the worst of it,” I said.

“What could be worse than you denying who you are?”

“She asked the question in Tagalog…”

A gleam of understanding slowly came to Kazunori’s eyes.

I continued: “And I answered right back. I was supposed to be Malaysian.”

He looked at me, his smile strange and sad. Then, in the middle of that tightness, as a disembodied female voice announced the name of the next station in a high-pitched voice, Kazunori leaned over and kissed me.

Suddenly, two old women erupted into a furious catfight before us—hands clutching hair, their dance a strange tango of two humps resembling unlikely sumos, and all the while the women kept their quiet. No words flung at each other, just their hands on each other’s hair, and throat, and dim kimonos. They went about it in a strange stranglehold—no shouting or screaming, just two elderly women locked in a furious quiet, battling each other. I felt embarrassed for them. Kazunori held me back. And nobody, not one among us, attempted to separate them. If I knew then what I know now, would I have considered that a premonition?

The crowded train sped on—past neon gloom, past the scattered brightness, past the concrete blocks of buildings shivering in the cold, past people. Many people.

When the train doors hissed open at the next station, the wintry air suddenly blasted in, and they both got off in their quiet huff, still clutching each other’s clothes, gripping tight each other’s hair.

Then the train chugged on, everybody occupied in their own private shells, all in our own journeys to some future where there would soon be an abundance of so much coldness. Kazunori let go of my arms, and we both sat down on the suddenly available seats in the train. We were both very quiet.

Five days, I said to myself as I crept into my dorm bed later that night. Five days, and I would be somewhere else. Five days, and finally there would be snow.

My cellphone rang. It was Kazunori. “Don’t go to Hokkaido, Al,” he said.

“I have to. Daijobu desu ka?”

He ignored the question.

“Stay in Tokyo, onegaishimasu.”

“I can’t.”

“Fine.”

The line went dead.

NOTHING COULD PREPARE ANYBODY for his first sight of snow. Mine was a glimpse of a spreading white from above, from up in the air. They were little patches of white, which were sectioned over the vast brown earth below. This was Hokkaido in the gloaming, winking at me from below as my plane from Tokyo started its maneuvers for the eventual landing. The pilot had already announced the landing routine in Japanese. I only halflistened, the lilt of his Japanese unfamiliar to me. Farther on, in the distance of the mountains, I could see the white patches spreading wider—and I suddenly said to no one in particular: “It all looks like a giant vanilla cake!”

I said this in English, it wasn’t loud, and the

114 E S Q U I R E S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3

people around me didn’t laugh. They just looked at me like I was a strange excitable savage. Gaijin. I could not care less. But I kept quiet after that, and when the plane landed, I followed the rest of the passengers as they moved, and walked slowly towards the exit.

Towards all that whiteness.

But it was true. Snow was icing on wintry earth, easily a spread of vanilla ice cream over a loaf of rye bread. The simile seemed apt. I felt suddenly hungry.

Snow was a tantalizing mystery for me. Growing up in the unending humidity of Manila—balmy, the movement of the air caloric, the air a mosaic of Technicolor chaos—my only idea of winter was culled from the usual places: Hollywood movies, Norman Rockwell paintings, and the tales of cousins newly-arrived from America (a choice of Missouri or Wisconsin) who would trip me with tactile descriptions whenever I asked what it was like: the brilliant whip of air that skewered bones, the frozen matter of nose and ears, the reality of layered wardrobe. “Good for you, you only get to wear tsinelas and sando and shorts all year long!” Cara, daughter of Auntie Lin-lin, used to tell me, in a patronizing voice devoid of envy. In the magazine pictures I used to clip away, winter was dashing: sweaters, coats, scarves—they struck me as having a tailored finish absent in the minimalist boredom of summer wear. In other pictures, snow meant Christmas, celebration, boys with pink cheeks, and an idea of winter—a calming whiteness, a consistency of smooth creaminess. Like vanilla ice cream.

Disembarking from the plane, I expected a nasty freeze to attack every pore of my tropical body. But nothing of the sort did. Kitami City, upon entry, was instead quite sunny, and what snow there was proved crisp and dry, perfect for a snowball fight.

I thought of Kazunori back in Tokyo, and wished he were here with me.

Mr. Kora waited for me near the exit of the airport. He was holding up a piece of hard cardboard with my name in Katakana.

“Regalado-san?” he asked when I approached him. He pronounced my name the way it was enunciated here—an “R” for the “L,” which seemed charming enough.

“Al Regalado?”

LIKE A FUCKING TRUCK IT HIT ME and it was clear and it was truth.

I don’t see how you can’t see this. I’m eating tacos and you’re having Banana Walnut Pancakes with sausage on the side and you’re complaining about how small the sausages are and I laugh because you always complain about how small the sausages are yet you order them anyway.

And then it happened.

Hit the beat now.

I’ve heard this song a million times. It’s so familiar and I can’t place it but I’m singing along and you’re looking at me like I’m a weirdo; judging me with your music fan eyes.

And I’m saying yeah ok listen I like your Fiona Apple too but will you just fucking listen for once have you ever listened to this really because it’s beautiful and it’s true.

Baby, am I a fool 'cause I don't know just how you feel?

What is this song. Let me pull out my app, you say, but your goddamned apps don’t matter because you’ve stopped listening haven’t you.

Lost in emotion Telling you things you really shouldn't know Just go. Leave me here with this. This is all I’ll ever need.

Quark Henares misses you. Sometimes he misses you so much it fucking hurts.

“Hai!” I beamed as best as I could.

“Ohayo gozaimasu, and welcome to Kitami City.” His Japanese was fast, and my mind quickly went on overdrive mode, snatching what words I could get in the flurry. But I was here in Hokkaido for the Christmas break, and here to practice my Japanese, in a “homestay program” for student gaijins like me to soak in pure language and pure culture. Nine days of that.

I gave my introductions—the all-about-me’s—in the best Japanese I could.

Mr. Kora seemed delighted at the facility I seemed to have with Nihongo, but the Japanese always did at any gaijin’s unlikely attempt at language. He said he was delighted to find my Japanese strong enough for us to converse in. He said his English was not that good. He was quite worried, before coming off to meet me, that he would not be able to communicate with me. He was all formal, and apologetic. I told him my Japanese was at best rudimentary, but I was here to learn.

“Ie, ie,” he said with a smile. “It’s good enough. Are you hungry?”

I said I was.

After an airport lunch of curry rice—apparently the trendiest dish in town—we finally went outside to the perfect cold.

“This is my first time to see snow,” I told Mr. Kora.

“Honto ne?” And he laughed.

I stopped to touch for the first time the ubiquitous white, and found that it was what I always thought it would feel like: beautiful but perfectly ordinary ice scrapings from the big freezer in the sky. Still the beauty of the thing was its shimmering reflected light, which seemed to come from everywhere. In that moment, beholding the whiteness everywhere around me, it was easy to create that illusion of snow of a creamy consistency. Just like in the postcards.

HOKKAIDO SEEMED to look as wild as the guidebooks contended it could be. I imagined quickly what surrounded me—vast forests of pristine pine, frozen lakes, rolling fields, all of that dwarfing the occasional farm house perhaps now buried under several centimeters of snow.

Mr. Kora drove around for a bit before heading home, showing me what he could of the town. Kitami itself looked normal, if predictably small. From the car, I could see the patches of snow at first giving way to the greenish brown of rough land in winter. But I knew the snow would eventually win: I knew that going farther inside Japan’s northernmost island region, so near Siberia, away from the sea, there would only be stark whiteness. A blinding, alien nothingness of cold.

My feet were soon getting rigid in the freeze, although, for some reason, I longed to strip away my four or five layers of clothing. I fidgeted with my scarf.

“The outside temperature is at -6°C,” Mr. Kora said, “It’s too warm for real winter.”

I laughed at that, and he did, too, quickly understanding my tropical take—but I liked it that way. There were only slight disappointments I had with this initial encounter with true winter: where were the shivers? the blue lips? the frozen eyes? the tongue stuck on frosty metallic surfaces? I was impatient.

His house was modest, and modern—two storeys in all, its prefabricated look the shade of greyish lilac. The entrance to the living quarters above was located right beside the garage door. He had a veterinary clinic in the first floor, Mr. Kora said. “I live upstairs with my wife and two kids. Naoki is 13, and Nozumi is 9. They’re all upstairs waiting for us. You’ll be using Nozumi’s room.”

“Will she be all right?”

“Oh, she will be. It’s only for nine days, anyhow. And she’s excited to meet you. She has not met any Filipino.”

“I hope I don’t disappoint her,” I said in jest. Mr. Kora did not get the joke. He only smiled, and gestured for us to go up. The front door groaned open in the cold. We quickly took off our shoes, and changed to house slippers—brown and cushy and comfortable. The house felt warm.

I GOT MY WISH FOR WINTER. Every day after four o’clock, when the sun would begin to set, a hard and fast coldness would start to creep into my consciousness, just enough to make me shiver and whisper in such pious observation of weather: “Samui desu ne?”

This made Naoki and Nozumi laugh.

I called Kazunori, and told him, “I think they find me a strange bird.”

“You’re a strange bird. And I’m still angry at you.”

“For what?”

“For leaving me in Tokyo.”

“I’ve made plans for this fuyu yasumi months back, Kazu. And it’s only for nine days.”

“Fine.”

Then he hung up.

Nine days with the Koras moved like molasses. They took me places—to make some glazed china, to go skiing in a mountain resort, to make a snowman, to learn ikebana, to go to the onsen or hot spring, to make rice cakes, to wear a kimono, to ride a snow mobile, to go para-sailing. Sometimes I helped them out in their downstairs clinic. I was eager to shovel snow, for example, like in the movies. The Kora kazoku was kind, even generous, and Mrs. Kora finally told me to call her okasan—“mother,” which seemed sweet, though I could never get around to calling Mr. Kora otosan— “father”—and he remained to me, in address, “Kora-san,” which suited us both fine.

After every spare dinner, in typical Nihonjin politeness, I’d lie and say: “Oishikatta desu neu. Onnaka ga ippai desu”—although I was rather famished. After evening television, which I did not understand, I’d excuse myself to go to my room, but not before sneaking some dried shrimps from a bowl just lying on the kitchen counter.

Every night, when I went to bed, I told myself beyond this keen painful understanding when my spirit longed for home: I needed this. I couldn’t always be home. I would have a future in stranger lands lonelier and colder than Japan. My nights were melodramatic. It defined me, but my reality eventually demanded sense, or at least an understanding of the deeper things that lie just beyond the province of tears. I needed this. I said this even on Christmas Eve. It was just another night in the cold of Hokkaido (and the next day, Christmas itself, Naoki and Nozumi went to school). I had an early dinner, and went to bed earlier than usual.

“Is anything wrong?” okasan asked.

“Nothing’s wrong. I’m just tired,” I said. “Totemo nemui desu.”

“All right then,” she said. “Oyasumi nasai.”

“Oyasumi nasai.”

In bed, I imagined the lechon de leche being sliced open for noche buena. I looked out the bedroom window, rubbed the panes free of frost, and before the spot turned back to shivering opaqueness, I saw the evening snow falling outside. They fell in quiet, like a song without sound.

I huddled back in bed, and dialed Kazunori’s number. His phone rang and rang, but he didn’t answer.

IT WAS STILL SNOWING that last morning of the

« CONTINUED

S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3 E S Q U I R E 115

« CONTINUED year—softly at first, then in a mute frenetic dance that blurred to an icy grayness the surface of the car window.

I sat almost spellbound in the backseat, mesmerized by this vision in white. I was, I think, murmuring something like, “Hajimete, hajimete…” It meant “first time.” This was much to the amusement of ojisan. The old man, Mrs. Kora’s father, was chuckling.

“So desu ka…,” he said as he drove our death-trap of a car around the turns and bends of gravel, asphalt, ice, and snow. He was taking me somewhere, he had said, before my fuyu yusumi was over, but refused to divulge where. “But you’d like it,” he assured me.

Soon I found myself drawing stick figures and kanji characters on the frozen window, while Naoki and Nozumi were fighting over some otamatoshi in the backseat with me. The car radio was blurting out a strange singsong. Furui ongaku. An old Japanese tune, atonal and bewildering.

And somehow, all these seemed alien to me in this Hokkaido landscape, and I was almost convinced that this place could not be Japan, but the wilds of some European steppe perhaps.

Outside our car, the snow fell softly and stealthily. It did not announce itself like the dropping pellets of tropical rain. Instead it sneaked over everything, like some thief of time. The view from the car window was, only a moment ago, of a blue and green landscape, but quickly transformed into a whiteness I could feel. The whiteness stretched on and on, and soon blurred any distinctions between land and sky. It was all both so beautiful and frightening at the same time.

On and on, ojisan drove. The drive seemed to take forever, and for stretches at a time, there was only silence and more snow.

The winding mountain path soon led us to an onsen—this one a common hot spring bath of beguiling rusticity.

“You like this?” he asked.

“I have never been to one before,” I said.

“Everyone always loves their first time at the onsen,” he chuckled.

Naoki and Nozumi were already racing towards the entrance, their feet crunching the ice under them.

Inside, I stripped down to all skin, and ojisan led me to the section reserved for the men. The tiles gleamed off-white from age and steam. Everyone else was naked. I did not have time to mind my own nudity once I stepped into the boiling waters of the pool, its fiery 40°C heat making my skin tight and supple. I felt somehow reborn.

Ojisan began to scrub my back. He said, “I know a woman from your country. She is married to a farmer I know. I’ll take you to see her before you leave for Tokyo.”

I nodded.

The next day, we made our way to Engaru, a town an hour away from the bright lights of Kitami. I met the farmer’s wife, big-haired and her make-up thick. She was a Waray named Divina, and she was married to this sour-looking, mono-syllabic Japanese cow-

SLASH

FICTION

HAVE YOU MET PAOLO? He’s an actor / model / singer / dancer / events host / consort / escort / beau-for-hire / boy-for-hire / college drop-out / theater major / dance org member / life of party / alcoholic / social smoker / occasional stoner / rabid snorter / manic-depressive / sex addict / father of Yolanda / father of Hiroki / father of Jhennalyn Grace / father of Jake (?) / bachelor for life / youngest of eight / black sheep / son of Teresita / son of ? / Star Talk staple / fan favorite / the public’s prodigal son / very recent born-again / Truth and Life Church member / Truth and Life Church celebrity endorser / Truth

116 E S Q U I R E S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3

farmer whose name I could not catch. Ojisan and the farmer quickly went for a walk, and Divina took me inside the house. It looked like something very typical for a Japanese small town: quite miserable and small, a tiny structure barely consisting of three rooms, warmed only by an old iron stove placed in the middle of a large cluttered living room.

Divina smiled at me, a delight in her eyes I found unsettling. I thought perhaps that she was the typical mail-order bride—country girl, ignorant, but hard-working, full of hopeful ambition. I felt guilty thinking just that. Over the stove, she warmed up a plate of pansit.

“Have you ever eaten pansit since you got here?” she asked.

“No, not really.”

“Then this would be a treat,” she laughed. She stirred the pansit in the pot.

She told me she had been living in Engaru for nine years, without me asking her at all, and she told me, again and again, that she was very happy, without me asking her whether she was.

“My husband is good,” she said, finally offering me the plate of pansit. I swiftly gobbled it up, to my surprise. I had no idea I was missing pansit.

“But other husbands, they’re not as good.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes.” “But you’re happy.”

“Oh, I am. Very much,” she said. “But I know several Filipinas in this area. They keep running away from their husbands. They’re abusive daw. Some are married to Yakuza mobsters. Some work as Japayukis in bodabils.”

I kept eating the pansit.

Soon Divina had both of us clad in stained overalls and in protective gloves. “I want to show you where I work,” she said.

We stepped out into the snow and into a dingy place that smelled of bovine shit. She showed me where she worked all day: in this cow barn that reeked of dung, and littered with hay and refuse and treated corn. “It’s all automated,” she said with some brightness, and showed me the sucking machines to milk the cows.

I smiled.

For an hour, I saw her go about her work. I listened to her broken Tagalog and her familiar Cebuano. She told me she just finished the construction of her family house in Samar. Now she was about to send money home to purchase the “Frigidaire” her family wanted, and the washing machine her sister demanded.

“Did you expect this life here in Japan?” I asked. This and her dirty barns, and her cow shit, and her eternal snow?

She smiled sadly, and then said, “No.” But she had come here, anyway, she said. “And I work hard. I work very hard.”

Ojisan soon came back with the farmer.

“Are you two friends now?” he chuckled.

BY MARGUERITE ALCAZAREN DE LEON

and Life Church stockholder / first-time embezzler / complete disgrace under fire / Truth and Life Church sacrificial lamb / prime suspect / hide-andseeker / wanted man / captured crook / criminal defendant / convicted felon / size 10 jumpsuit / your brand-new cellmate.

Paolo, this is Dagul. You two play nice.

As of this writing, Marguerite is seriously considering setting up a union at the company she works for.

I merely nodded, but Divina was all bright and happy. “Oh yes, Kora-san,” she said. “Arigato gozaimasu. Thank you for taking Al here. It has been such a long time since I talked to another Filipino.”

The next day, the Koras took me to a Buddhist temple for the New Year, in a tradition the Japanese called hatsumode. We offered our prayers and wishes to the gods. I lit the incense, and wrote out my wish on a piece of paper.

“Do your wishes ever come true?” I asked Nozumi.

The little girl giggled and hugged me. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I closed my eyes and wished anyway.

I WAS SOON BACK IN TOKYO, grateful that fuyu yasumi was over.

But the snow followed me. The entire city was suddenly deluged by unexpected January snow. It came in so thick and fast that in less than an hour, around noon of January 4, it covered everything.

Classes were suspended. The lights and phone lines went out for a few hours. The trains came to a stop. People were trapped inside the denshas and ekis until the early morning. It was supposed to be the heaviest snowfall in the metropolis in four years, and everywhere a blanket of whiteness that dazzled and frightened.

I could only find one working phone booth right out in the ghostly white of central Musashi-sakai. Even inside the booth, I felt the winter’s growing choke. The wind was cold. A few steps away from me, the Sunkus convenient store glowed happy and neon, a bright dot in the lingering stillness of a January night. I touched the green glow of the telephone’s call monitor: there were only few credits left on my phone card, and yet so many words were left unsaid.

I dialed anyway. It was only enough to get Kazunori’s answering machine. It had been days, and I had not seen him.

I heard a faint click, and a shrill-voiced recording informed me that I had run out of credit and needed to reload. But there was less than a ¥200 in change in my pocket. Not enough.

“Goddammit,” I hissed, and banged the phone down.

I must have stayed too long in the booth. An old woman, wrapped in a thick jacket, tapped my shoulder, and whispered, “Sumimasen, daijoubu desu ka?”

Perhaps I was too quick to bow in reassurance—in thanks, in gratitude, in sheer embarrassment. I was breathless in my forced grin and pastiness. I said, “Hai. Daijoubu desu...” Yes, I’m fine.

The old woman gave me a wrinkled smile and slowly walked away, her tiny footprints in the snow lost soon in the shifting powder and slush. It was strange for the old woman to do that. They never did that, the Japanese.

I sighed, and banged my head against the booth’s glass panes. I have no time for this, I told myself. Forget him.

I bought hot coffee from the pimply-faced boy in the Sunkus counter. After downing it, I began my bicycle trip home towards the dormitory.

I did not want to think: I quickly checked my coat and sweater, my cap—made sure it kept my ears from stiffening and falling away like crackers, my gloves, the tangle of my scarf, careful not to notice the dead inertness of the street, quick to observe any signs of life: the shift from red to blue in the traffic lights, the waft of nabe from the little restaurant still open down the street, the screech of the occasional rubber against salted asphalt.

I passed the denuded cherry trees gracing the road going into my university, past the bus stop, past a late night couple hurrying to some warmer rendezvous. Dai Ni Danshiryoo, the second men’s dorm, looked curiously empty from the outside, its whitish Art Deco walls grey with wintry foreboding. The fir trees—the only

mark of green around—were scraping its walls with the soft, cold wind, icy fingers plowing into the powder deposited in the minute crevices of the facade.

I parked my bike outside, and when I reached the bushes in the entrance, I vomited—tasting the remnants of coffee spilling through my guts. It was almost sweet and bitterish.

“Al. Daijoubu? Are you okay?” Somebody called out softly from the dark behind me.

I quickly turned. “Oh, it’s you.”

Kazunori stood there.

I looked away. “Yeah, I’m okay,” I said. “I guess I’m okay.”

I looked down, covered my mouth with my mittens.

“Bad dinner?” Kazunori was shivering from the cold.

He looked miserable. He was not wearing anything warm—only a brown plaid shirt, what looked like a flimsy pair of old pajama bottoms, and a familiar green scarf. We had bought it together once in a street bazaar in Kichijoji, when fall was beginning to break. I had not seen it for a while.

“Bad sashimi,” I answered.

“You be careful of those.”

I mustered a smile. “Actually, coffee on an empty stomach.”

He smiled. “You be careful of that, too...”

“What are you doing here, Kazu?” I said. “It’s cold.”

“Yeah, I know.” Kazunori looked at my dorm. I saw his eyes grazing across the few lighted windows. I saw him stare at the bedroom window. There was a glimpse of the stairwell going up to the second floor. The glass panes were frosty, betraying no hint of activity, only the fluorescent lamps that gave the interiors an anemic feel.

“So what are you doing here, and in those clothes?”

“Nothing really. I don’t know...”

I gave him a sad smile in reply.

Kazu looked at me, and after a while he smiled back, looking almost resigned.

He kept muttering to himself, “Baka, baka...” Stupid, he was saying.

“Come on, Kazu. The only crazy, stupid thing in the world is to wear pajamas in the middle of winter.”

He looked down at his pajama bottoms, and laughed.

“You must be cold,” I said. “Look, I could invite you in, but it’s way past the curfew...”

His eyes were suddenly serious, glassy. He did not say anything.

“Will you be okay?” I asked him.

“I suppose. I’m leaving for Kobe tomorrow, for the weekend. Just wanted to give you this scarf back, just in case, you know... you get cold.”

He handed me the scarf, and gave me another small smile. He was beginning to shiver.

I nodded. “Sure.”

He walked away, and got on his bike.

“Kazu…”

“Yes?” “Don’t go.”

“It’s curfew time. You said so.”

“I mean, don’t go to Kobe.”

He only smiled.

I considered the green scarf in my hands—it felt so small, so thin, so old and worn in many places I wondered how it could keep anyone warm. Something about it stirred something in me. It felt like a small, infinite sadness. I wanted to do something about it. Shout out something. Do something.

When I looked up, Kazunori was gone.

S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3 E S Q U I R E 117

BY FRANCEZCA C. KWE THE DAY OF THE DEMOLITION started out like any other day; after all, demolitions were as common as birthday parties. The house, as usual, swayed with the movement of a multitude of bodies turning away from morning’s first rays on the crowded top floor, while the ground floor blew out smoke from the mass cooking of breakfast. The middle story vibrated with the wails of children as they woke with empty stomachs, finding their mothers, sisters, and grandmothers gone from their side, having risen at dawn to see to the food, the laundry, and the goats. One of the young women, distinguishable from the others by her deep lamb’s eyes, begun us, as usual, on our stuporous chewing; we shivered in anticipation as her arm arched before us, our mouths reaching for the stale stalks of grass and the dark tips of her swinging hair. The house, proud handiwork of three generations of her family, swayed and groaned. As for us, we stood shoulder to shoulder, almost glued together, in the scrap-wood pen constructed to keep us as still as statues, the kids battering our ribs with their restless heads, their soft skulls squeezing between our legs, here and there the jab of a juvenile horn, eliciting a grunt or a bellow from the miserable males, who gazed with longing at the other pen, where the does could walk a

118 E S Q U I R E S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3

few steps, or even lie down, and where the ghost of my young self, grateful for the nonstop pregnancies that meant my life, was merrily prancing. The kids that jostled for a breath of air or a look beyond the pen instantaneously regretted it, for all they saw was the butcher’s knife, and the torch, which singed the fur off the carcasses like a dragon. My unfortunate brethren at the very front of the pen, unable to close their eyes, resorted to massaging the thick cloud of fear and panic into their gums, every mouthful of cud reduced to an opiate paste, while breathing in the fermented fumes from our collective mouths, more potent than car exhaust. To human eyes, we might have seemed dumb to our fate, but all of us can somehow find a way to watch the ceaseless dance of the knife, even goats.

IN THE EMPTY, silent morning, that human girl I was fond of—as a youngster, I once ate her only schoolbook, and faced no recrimination—squatted by the pen and tickled her cellphone. It was that precious hour when the men of the house still loitered in their slumber, and we could close our eyes in relief. She became absorbed in composing a message to one of the boys in the neighborhood—Jonner, I believe was the name—who was probably at that

moment making a Molotov cocktail for later in the day, to the music of youthful bitterness and frustration. She thought herself in love with him; he enthralled her with his ability to recount the struggle of the urban poor in breathless rap. She believed in love, and not poverty. In that, we were not unlike each other—I believed in flowers, scooped in the mouth from a grassy field, not pebbles. I also believed in love—for my disappeared children and my lovers who ended up dripping away on the butcher’s block, particularly that long-ago, passionate billy who despite having a bleat like Ezra Pound, had a goatee like Lenin’s.

In her love, the young girl reminded me of myself, but she was on the edge of adolescence, already oozing that sour rejection of anyone or anything that was responsible for producing her. She had once amassed the courage to ask a visiting reporter, doing a special on battered women in the community, what road to take to be like her. The reporter told her she had to go to school and finish college, and hold off marriage and children for as long as possible. Sometimes she, Lizzie, would think that she could always have just one kid, anyway, and make life easier for herself, buck the trend of having many children, something for which the rich found the likes of them abominable. But then, a part

of her would pull back, that part of her that sometimes seemed a voyager into the future, where she is already a broadcaster writing her memoirs. Ka Pilar, the activist association leader with the build of a shepherd that I quite admire, has told my young mistress not to fear contradictions, for life is a maze of them; for example, she explained, she believed in God but also in women’s rights. Ka Pilar was middle-aged and fat from having borne six children, all placard bearers and barricade builders at demolition rallies. She had a bright, cheerful face and broad arms the color of coffee, and she told Lizzie that she could have Jonner’s children and work at her dreams, no problem. “It’s no longer either/or,” she said, cutting up goat’s flesh into little pink cubes, “we’re liberated when we accept we can do both.” This uttered by her generous mouth, she who was a true product

of the barrio—born, bred, and raised. She had the gift of stopping bulldozers in their tracks, and walked towards congressmen, councilors, and cops like a saint about to be martyred.

THE SENILE ROOSTER sounded a feeble clarion call, courageously attempting to wake the entire community that yet slept in the shadow of the beautiful mall that rose just beside it. The black and gray bruise that were the slums, spreading in a city that loved its malls and kaldereta. The mallgoers in their cars had no choice to pass us by and behold our keepers waving their arms and pointing to our pens. All of this was a scene of absolute and undeniable horror to people on their way to shopping or dining, and often I saw their mouths contort and their tears flow, their faces reddening in anger and indignation,

at our plight. “This is so unnecessary,” said one young passerby once to her young man. “Why must the goats see their kind killed right in front of them? They may be animals, but they know what awaits them, they can already smell their death! And those small pens—how cruel! They must have the space,” she exclaimed, “to roam!

To be happy, to die a dignified death.” Her nostrils quivered as she inhaled the smell of burned flesh and fur from the torches, and the sweet, fatty musk of the unfathomable survivors. Lizzie, who had not sold an ounce of meat the whole day, interrupted to offer a kilo of goat’s meat, cut up for brisket, at half price, but the indignant girl would not look at her. “I wished we had never taken this walk,” she said to the young man, “I won’t get to sleep tonight.”

“You wanted to see the slums,” he said with a laugh. “Well, here you « CONTINUED

Racing Sunrise THIS IS WHAT WE DO WHEN THE MOON GOES DOWN. Those of us who know gather at the highest promontory in the area. Usually, this is some spot the teenagers call by something distressingly alliterative: Lover’s Lane, Heartbreak Hill, like that. The name doesn’t matter—only the height, the silence, the solitude; the view, unobstructed as possible, no buildings, gantries, satellite dishes.

By that time, most of the younger people will have gone from there, chasing curfews, placating parents, whisking through second-story windows. Or perhaps an early, early breakfast somewhere—feeling mature and cosmopolitan; eking out the night, heralding the light. Some few stragglers will remain, but be driven off eventually by the sheer metastasy of our presence.

We bring our own noise, of course. Someone will turn their car radio on to maximum. Or someone else will have brought an iPod or a laptop with speakers, blasting out the latest sound from some soon-discovered star. Rooted in the old, we are smitten with the new.

Cecilia, predictably, will lead the dancing—on a car trunk or hood, or roof if one is available, which isn’t all too often. We prefer convertibles, sun roofs, motorcycles; part of the thrill, the unwritten rules. Others will join once she starts, further trampling the tire-marked grass, or just bobbing heads rhythmically from their places of repose.

Many of us will smoke. The new smokers, as I once was, will have all they can do to keep hands from shaking as they set sticks alight, the flame flaring far too close to fingers, lips, eyebrows. Most will be wreathed in smoke in moments, neglecting to inhale. The more experienced ones, showing off, prefer to use matches—igniting with the flick of a thumb, tossing the remains oh-so-carelessly into the brittle brush. They will lean back against windshields, windows, tires; exhaling the occasional smoke circle, building bridges of smoke from mouth to nose,

BY NIKKI ALFAR

establishing ephemeral cool.

Some few will actually entwine—lazily, luxuriously, desultorily.

It becomes difficult to tell who is with whom, not that it truly matters.

What matters is the purple: the change, minute at first, as the day begins its inexorable climb from the shadows of evening. We all pretend not to be looking for it; yet we all rise—leisurely or abruptly, with anticipation or growing panic—as the sun begins its rising.

And slowly, yet startlingly sudden—the purple turns to pink; the pink turns to peach; the peach turns to gold. And when the first faint hints of turquoise begin to streak the sky, as one, we all turn and run for the vehicles.

The rules are: convertibles, if possible, tops down. Other cars with sun roofs opened. Windows rolled down, and none of those sun-shades. Motorcycles, of course, are exposed enough by their very construction. And we ride to beat the devil.

The devil’s devil, Santi used to say, before he went up that morning, two years ago, two minutes too slow; burst into flame like a candle, Yamaha wheeling crazily across the road, spitting out still more sparks as it smashed into something—a tree, a fence, who knows? We rode on, the wind in our hair, the blood in our veins, the burning at our backs.

And when we reached the still, cool, most importantly dark sanctuary, I, the newest of new blood at the time, was the only one not laughing, not exhilarated by the rush, the thrill, the daring of living on the knife-edge of dying.

“Don’t any of you bastards give a damn!?” I lashed out at them.

“He just died! Santi’s dead!”

“Sweetie,” Cecilia said that night, eyeing me coolly as she lit up a new coffin nail, “aren’t we all?”

Nikki Alfar’s first collection of short fiction, Now, Then, and Elsewhen, is out now.

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E XC E R P T * *

HE IMPLORED THEM TO YIELD, I WOULD BE THE SORRIER FOR USING FORCE, HE SAID, AND THE BULLDOZERS INCHED A LITTLE CLOSER LIKE OBEDIENT BEASTS. —FRANCEZCA C. KWE

« CONTINUED are.” This kind of talk was hardly new to my ears, because for years, the community had been viewed as a stain on the landscape, while they were saying that the land it stood on was too good for it. Threats of demolition rained over it the whole wet season, abating in summer, when, instead of cops and bulldozers, they sent trucks with loudspeakers blaring campaign jingles and promises. By noon, I could sense the tension of the residents riding on the breeze, as if they themselves were facing impending slaughter. This demolition would draw out even those living in shadow, because the talk was it was more special than the rest, being laced with the vengeance of the newly elected mayor, who had inundated the barrio with cash last campaign season, the hottest weeks of the year, making the barrio awash with new slippers and a TV here and there.

But though they took his money, they had all banded together to vote a different candidate—our candidate, Ka Pilar emphasized—a tall, thin man stooped with the weight of his integrity, a former peasant leader of whose intentions Ka Pilar had no doubt, a savior, to hear her describe him, someone who could defy the reptiles in government, who could keep vigil over the hidden movements of evil generals. For one thing, she said, he’ll give power back to us, power that did belong to us though we live no better than the goats we sell.

BY ONE O’CLOCK, the sun’s heat almost slicing off the tops of our heads, a crowd had gathered just beside our pen, at the community’s widest entrance, around which had sprung piles of tires and roadblocks assembled from detritus spray-painted with a thousand denouncements. A deep rumble announced the arrival of the bulldozers, as well as a team of men paid to brandish hammers, a column of helmeted, shielded cops, and an SUV that spit out an anxious barangay councilor. Hidden in the crowd, like knives in back pockets, were the blond kids of the landfill, beer bottles tucked into their waistbands. The councilor, soaked in sweat, stepped forward to shake the hands of those on the front line, who appraised him as if he were a seller of spoiled meat.

An imperious cop with insignias and pins surveyed the scene, his gaze circling like a vulture above a carcass. He told the crowd to move back, get out of the way; he threw a glance in the direction of where

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the water cannons would come, but was answered by jeers and some wailing from the women. The barricade was braced with stubbornness of people who would lash out if he even so much as pointed as them, how would he remove them from where they stood beside a pen of goats? He implored them to yield; I would be the sorrier for using force, he said, and the bulldozers inched a little closer like obedient beasts.

BUT THIS WAS INITIAL INTIMIDATION, because a demolition keeps tradition.

Members of both sides came forward for the ritualistic negotiation, watched keenly by an army of children sitting on the curb.

Ka Pilar looked ready to sink into a bog of discussion, but her hands also twitched with an electric energy. Many times in the past she had been successful at staving off the destroyers, but these were reprieves the barrio was miraculously blessed with, as just the day before I had chomped on a piece of newspaper that stated that 7 out of 10 demolitions proceeded as planned, the success rate going higher the more protesters were hurt. But so does hope increase, the more minutes pass by uneventfully in an episode of doom. Mothers sat down on the barricade and rocked their babies to sleep, the waiting cops contentedly smoked cigarettes bought from one of the small stores, and even the bulldozers began to purr. In this lull transpired a moment of the sacred peace peculiar to Philippine stand-offs: a grandmother having merienda on her feet offered a cop a stick of suman. The demolition crew grew to joke with each other, a few breaking off to say hello to some of their relations.

Standing together in earnest talk, Ka Pilar and the cop in charge exchanged smiles.

BUT THEN—this much was plain to my animal judgment—he turned around wearing the face of a five-star-general happy with a false deal. The cop on the ground took a call from the mayor in the tower, and swiftly, his machinery once again came to life. The aggressor repeated his line—Move away, back down—like an actor performing a new take, and the faces in the crowd darkened as if he had fired a bullet.

KA PILAR, standing her ground as if she had been driven into it like a post, began chanting about housing, education, food, jobs, and her lone voice was soon joined

by a chorus, above which hovered the intermittent trill of an insult on the big cop’s masculinity. The chant rose and crashed like a wave, splashing me and my herd, swirling around us and flowing up our throats and tickling our lips until we yelled, as if we had caught the scent of a lion, as if we were lost in a canyon, as if we were being hacked at the loins, as if this were the sole chance to trumpet the history of our pain. The city must have been straining its ears as the slums resounded with our screams: the cries of humans mingling with that of goats—which, if you’ve never heard before, can seem indistinguishable from yours. The first rain of the summer fell, the big fat drops almost sizzling as they came into contact with the tin roofs, the ground opened its pores and released the earth’s long-suppressed, loamy exhalations. The plywood shanties trembled as the cops advanced in a rattle of fiberglass, the bulldozers snorted angrily, and the men with hammers pounded on the undefended walls and roofs. The boys of Jonner’s group let loose a volley of Coke bottles, which shattered and ignited at the cops’ feet. A pebble launched from the sure slingshot of a small child grazed the councilor’s ear, making him scramble back to his car.

A bulldozer roared and charged, raising its metal claw. Ka Pilar, in a cop’s violent embrace, reached for his face and tried to twist it like a jar lid. Some of those who had surged forward and collided with the jets from the water cannons were being dragged away to the police trucks. Craning my neck I could see Lizzie hurling plastic laundry buckets at the encroachers, before Jonner hurried to her side, and they retreated deep into the slums, running hand in hand. The sound of splintering wood came to my ears, and the bar that was pressing against my chest dropped away in astounding defeat. The demolition crew had broken apart our pen, pushing out my brothers, sisters, elders, and children, sending us stumbling into freedom. One of my uncles flashed a mineral eye, and bit into the wrist of a cop, hopefully disabusing him of the notion that a goat is not intelligent enough to understand the suffering of men. And like men’s forefathers, our tribe scattered, some looking back, some running, some tentatively taking the steps to freedom, some thinking it was too late.

WHAT I’VE LEARNED

W R I T E R , 59 I N T E RV I E W E D BY SA RG E L AC U E STA P H OTO G R A P H E D BY EDRIC CHEN

Butch Dalisay

>Never trust your equipment. I once lost six hours of interviews

on a bad SD card. I didn’t tell the subject. Over my next few meetings with him I asked the same questions piece by piece all over again and reconstituted everything. >The only reason that I’m not on Facebook is that I just can’t buy into the Facebook notion of “friend.” It takes a lot to be my friend.

We need to have broken bread and maybe some other things together. I just can’t accept the notion of someone having 25,000 friends and “unfriending” them in one instant. The older I get, the more important friendship is to me. >I’m becoming more of a recluse, a homebody. I used to be a night owl. Charlson Ong and I would be out till 4 or 5 in the morning nearly every night of the week twenty years ago. Now the only time I go out for all-night binges is to play poker, where nobody cares who I am and nobody talks to me about writing. They call me “The Professor” there, but I’m really no better than anybody else and people in shorts and slippers routinely beat the shit out of me. >I’ve been a gambler all my life. Not just figuratively, but literally. I grew up with the sound of mahjong tiles coming from the ground floor. My dad brought me a brand-new Singer typewriter for one of my birthdays—I think it was my eleventh or twelfth. I could smell the oil on the machine. And then a few days later it was gone. It didn’t take long for me to figure out that he’d lost it on some bet. Despite that, I loved and admired my dad, fiercely.

Despite himself, he did his best to take good care of us, and we all came out okay. >I should have learned to stay away from gambling. But I suppose there’s a part of me that’s trying to prove that my dad was in some screwy way right to indulge himself in some careless passion. >What I actually think I’m doing is developing a huge store of guilt.

It’s guilt that makes me do things. Redemption is a big thing with me. >I write at the poker table. I write columns on my phone while playing. I’ve even written parts of my novel while playing. That’s part of what I mean by redemption. >As early as high school I realized that the only thing I could do reasonably well was write. I topped the entrance exam in Philippine Science but nearly got kicked out in the first year—I got a 5.0 in math. >My third novel is set in the poker world. It’s about a call center agent who’s also a grinder at poker. The guy who makes a few hundred bucks most days. Plays just well enough to hang in there. >I’m a grinder in writing. That’s what I am, and proudly so. Not everything I write will win a prize, but I do every job as best I can.

I think it’s an honest living. >I sold my first television play at 16. Most of what I’ve learned,

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I’ve learned on the job. I dropped out of college at 17 with only 21 units, and didn’t come back until I was 27. >I don’t like to be poor, but having been there I’m not afraid of it.

When I went to grade school, many days, my baon was a loaf of “Tasty” bread. I’d pull off a few slices for recess, a few more for lunch. I remember coming home to a dinner of rice and brown sugar. That’s why I became a bookworm—nothing to do but stay in the library and read and read. >I made my own version of The Hardy Boys. I replaced Bayport with Boni Avenue. I was nine or 10. My first attempt at publishing was taking several sheets of paper, folding them in the middle and sewing up a spine. >Incidentally, that’s how I learned to sew. I can hem my own pants. I would buy suits from the Salvation Army when I was in graduate school in the U.S. and I would do my own hemming. I sew better than my wife. >Beng [his wife] is fun to be with. She’s fun to travel with. Every place I’ve seen I want to bring her to. One of the most glorious days of my life—stepping out of the train at Sta. Lucia station and seeing Venice explode in beauty before me and laughing my head off just because. I’m saving up to bring Beng there next year. >I’m fascinated by the physical world. I have a hard time writing fantasy. There’s enough mystery in the tangible, physical world. >I grew up a good Catholic boy, but I’ve taken myself out of the church quite vocally. It’s no longer a church that speaks to me. But every night I still pray and it’s always a prayer of thanksgiving. I know I’m lucky to be alive and reasonably well and happy. >I suppose there’s some biochemical explanation for all this. It’s probably all just biochemistry, but the human being himself is the mystery. >I’ve never been an adventurous eater. Given a restaurant, this is what I’ll order, and it never changes. I like my problems to be the fictional ones. I like to worry about my characters. Life is messy enough. At some point, some simplification of one’s own life helps. >I’m a supermoderator at PhilMUG (the Philippine Mac Users Group). When I put my geek hat on, when I’m in that mode, it’s really to be able to experience today what most other people will experience five to ten years from now. >I turn 60 in January. Maybe I have about 15 years of life yet. Of those, maybe ten productive years of writing. I have to plan those years. I belong to that generation which didn’t think they would live past 25. So every year since has been a kind of a grace note. >Writing is just one way to happiness. There are other and better ways to get ahead in this world. But it’s the best way I know, and I’m blessed to have that option.

WHAT I’VE LEARNED

W R I T E R A N D D I R ECTO R, 77 I N T E RV I E W E D BY CA L F U S S M A N P H OTO G R A P H E D BY MARK MANN

> My two teenage girls think of me as ancient. But I’m up before them and wake them to go to school. > What people who don’t write don’t understand is that they think you make up the line consciously—but you don’t. It proceeds from your unconscious. So it’s the same surprise to you when it emerges as it is to the audience when the comic says it. I don’t think of the joke and then say it. I say it and then realize what I’ve said. And I laugh at it, because I’m hearing it for the first time myself. > Without fear, you’d never survive. > My dad didn’t even teach me how to shave—I learned that from a cabdriver. But the biggest lesson he imparted is that if you don’t have your health, you have nothing. No matter how great things are going for you, if you have a toothache, if you have a sore throat, if you’re nauseated, or, God forbid, you have some serious thing wrong with you—everything is ruined. > A corned-beef sandwich would be sensational, or one of those big, fat frankfurters, you know, with the mustard. But I don’t eat any of that stuff. I haven’t had a frankfurter in, I would say, forty-five years. I don’t eat enjoyable foods. I eat for my health. > Marshall McLuhan predicted books would become art objects at some point. He was right. > My mother taught me a value—rigid discipline. My father didn’t earn enough, and my mother took care of the money and the family, and she had no time for lightness. She always saw the glass a third full. She taught me to work and not to waste time. > I never see a frame of anything I’ve done after I’ve done it. I don’t even remember what’s in the films. And if I’m on the treadmill and I’m surfing the channels and suddenly Manhattan or some other picture comes on, I go right past it. If I saw Manhattan again, I would only see the worst. I would say: “Oh, God, this is so embarrassing. I could have done this. I should have done that.” So I spare myself. > In the shower, with the hot water coming down, you’ve left the real world behind, and very frequently things open up for you. It’s the change of venue, the unblocking the attempt to force the ideas that’s crippling you when you’re trying to write. > If you’re born with a gift, to behave like it’s an achievement is not right. > I love Mel Brooks. And I’ve had wonderful times working with him.

But I don’t see any similarities between Mel and myself except, you know, we’re both short Jews. That’s where it ends. His style of humor is completely different. But Bob Hope? I’m practically a plagiarist. > We took a tour of the Acropolis late in the morning, and I looked

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Woody Allen down upon the theater and felt a connection. I mean, this is where Oedipus debuted. It’s amazing for someone who’s spent his life in show business or worked in dramatic art to look down at the theater where, thousands of years ago, guys like Mike Nichols and Stephen Sondheim and David Mamet were in togas, thinking, Gee, I can’t get this line to work. You know, I’ve been working on it all night.

And that actor, he doesn’t know how to deliver it. Sophocles and Euripides and Aristophanes. The costumes are late, and we gotta go on! > It’s been said about marriage “You have to know how to fight.”

And I think there’s some wisdom to that. People who live together get into arguments. When you’re younger, those arguments tend to escalate, or there’s not any wisdom that overrides the argument to keep in perspective. It tends to get out of hand. When you’re older, you realize, “Well, this argument will pass. We don’t agree, but this is not the end of the world.” Experience comes into play. > Back when I started, when I opened Take the Money and Run, the guys at United Artists accumulated the nation’s criticisms into a pile this big and I read them all. Texas, Oklahoma, California, New England . . . That’s when I realized that it’s ridiculous. I mean, the guy in Tulsa thinks the picture’s a masterpiece, and the guy in Vermont thinks it’s the dumbest thing he’s ever seen. Each guy writes intelligently. The whole thing was so pointless. So I abandoned ever, ever reading any criticisms again. Thanks to my mother, I haven’t wasted any time dwelling on whether I’m brilliant or a fool.

It’s completely unprofitable to think about it. > You can only do so much, and then you’re at the mercy of fortune. > Me sitting down for dinner with Ingmar Bergman felt like a house painter sitting down with Picasso. > It’s just an accident that we happen to be on earth, enjoying our silly little moments, distracting ourselves as often as possible so we don’t have to really face up to the fact that, you know, we’re just temporary people with a very short time in a universe that will eventually be completely gone. And everything that you value, whether it’s Shakespeare, Beethoven, da Vinci, or whatever, will be gone. The earth will be gone. The sun will be gone. There’ll be nothing. The best you can do to get through life is distraction. Love works as a distraction. And work works as a distraction. You can distract yourself a billion different ways. But the key is to distract yourself. > A guy will say, “Well, I make my luck.” And the same guy walks down the street and a piano that’s been hoisted drops on his head.

The truth of the matter is your life is very much out of your control.

Allen was photographed on June 3 at his office in Manhattan.

WHAT I’VE LEARNED

W R I T E R , 86 I N T E RV I E W E D BY M A RC E LO LUJÁ N T R A N S L AT E D BY N I N A PA R A D I E S P H OTO G R A P H E D BY RO D R I G O M OYA

G. García Márquez >It’s not important where I was born: it was in the 20s in a small town. My grandparents brought me up until I was eight years old, but my most vivid and constant memory is not of them but the house we lived in. It’s a dream that never leaves me, it is infinite: I wake up with the sensation of having dreamt that I am in that enormous, ancient house. Nevertheless it it not a return. It’s being there, ageless and without any apparent motive, like I never left. >I read The Metamorphosis at the age of 19: the beginning of that novel was for me more than a revelation. And I thought: dammit, this is what my grandmother was talking about. Therefore I decided to read all the important novels of the past, including the Bible, a sensational book in which fantastic things happen. >I started to write by chance, maybe solely to prove to a friend that my generation was capable of producing writers. Afterward I fell into the trap of writing simply for pleasure, and later the other trap that nothing else in the world gave me more pleasure than writing. >You can’t imagine the amount of lies I had to tell during my days as a student to become a writer, to be able to follow my path. Everyone expected me to dedicate my life to something else. I became a great student simply so that they would leave me in peace, and so that I could read poems and novels, which is what really interested me. >In 1966 I offered an Argentine editor the rights of life to one of my books in exchange for $500. Today this is a very small sum, and although back then it still wasn’t much it was enough for Mercedes and I to pay what we owed for nine months of rent in our house in San Ángel Inn in Mexico. In that sense, it has cost me much to publish. >The majority of the stories that got me started in this profession I heard from my mother. She never listened to talk about literary speeches or technical narratives, but she knew how to narrate stories with impact and punch. Later I discovered that the effort of writing a short story is as intense as starting a novel. The radical difference is that the story has no beginning or end: it hatches or it doesn’t. And if it doesn’t hatch, if it doesn’t have any impact, the best advice would be to throw it in the trash.

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>I hope, with all my heart, that the world becomes socialist. And I believe with certainty that sooner or later it will be. >The Cuban revolution is in a state of suspension on account of the lack of comprehension and the hostility of the US, which cannot accept that this is taking place just 90 miles away from Florida. >I believe that the incapacity for love is the greatest misfortune that can afflict a human being. And it is a misfortune not only for those who do not have love, but also for those who have had the bad luck of coming close. >It occurred in Mexico City in 1976. All of it due to a misunderstanding when the four of us were living in Paris, when Mario [Vargas Llosa] and I were still friends. Relationship stuff. We were entering the theater and out of the blue he punched me in this eye. I think he said “for what you did to Patricia [wife of Vargas Llosa]”. Although I never understood whether he said “did” or “said”. No, it no longer matters. >All men are impotent from the moment they come into the world.

Some, the majority, have the great fortune of encountering women who can resolve this problem. >At a certain period of my life, I was so poor that I wrote by night and slept by day in order to trick my stomach. From that time to this, you realize, my economic situation changes. I own, for instance, a Mercedes Benz. Some people complain why, being a socialist, I own a Mercedes. To these people I would say: to own a Mercedes, luckily, I did not have to exploit anyone. >For a long time I divided my group of friends between those who knew me before and those who knew me after 100 Years of Solitude.

The former seem more safe and certain because we became friends for various reasons, but in no way due to my celebrity. Later I realized that that was a mistake; the attraction produced by the idea of celebrity is as legitimate a motive as any other. >Modestly speaking, I consider myself to be the freest man in the world—in the sense that I am not attached to anything nor anyone—and I owe this to having done only what I wanted my whole life, which is telling stories.

ESQ | Style

DOWNRIVER. king of the whole wide world

Photographs by TOM CRAIG / Fashion by CATHERINE HAYWARD

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Gray/black checked wool trench coat; gray checked wool/linen/ silk suit; black/ white cotton shirt/ gray spotted silk tie, all by Tom Ford Q

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ESQ | Style

Navy pinstriped seersucker suit; blue cotton shirt; navy patterned silk pocket square, all by Boss by Hugo Boss

CREDITS GO HERE

Q

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ESQ | Style

Navy seersucker striped jacket; white cotton shirt; navy/ gray striped silk tie, all by Burberry Prorsum Q

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Beige cotton trench coat; navy wool suit; blue/white microchecked cotton shirt; navy/red striped knitted tie, all by Alfred Dunhill Q

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ESQ | Style

Burgundy cotton trench coat; navy windowpane wool suit; blue/ white striped cotton shirt; blue silk tie, all by Ermenegildo Zegna Q

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ESQ | Style

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ESQ | Style

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Blue/white cotton shirt with contrast collar by Ralph Lauren Black Label. Navy/blue braces with leather trim by Polo Ralph Lauren. Navy/white patterned silk tie; navy wool pinstriped trousers, part of suit, both by Ralph Lauren Purple Label Q

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ESQ | Style

Navy wool doublebreasted blazer; navy wool slim trousers; navy calfskin leather derby shoes, all by Dior Homme Q

Photographerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s assistants: Hugo Grimwood / Gus Van Den Abeele On-set producer: Edwina Dvorak Fashion assistants: Stephanie Crain / Charlotte Messenger / Natasha Zeff Grooming: Marcia Lee using Armani and Oribe Model: Werner Schreyer at Select Shot on location in London Special thanks to: Jeremy King at Brasserie ZĂŠdel (brasseriezedel. com) / Richard Scott at Sushi Samba (sushisamba.com) and Duck & Waffle (duckandwaffle.com)

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S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3 E S Q U I R E 139

WHEN BOLD COLORS AND LOUD CLASHES DONâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;T SUIT THE MOOD OR THE MEETING, LOOK TO THE AWESOME POWER AND UNEXPECTED SURPRISES OF THE NEW WAVE OF DARK SUITING

PHOTOGRAPHS BY

JOHAN SANDBERG

ESQUIRE STYLE

THE NEXT STEP

This page, on Thomas Wirthensohn, documentary filmmaker: Cotton trench coat ($3,950) by Louis Vuitton; three-button cashmere-and-silk suit ($8,562), cotton shirt ($870), and cashmerewool-and-silk tie ($280)by Kiton; leather shoes ($900)

by Santoni. Opposite: Two-button wool-andcashmere suit ($2,950), cotton shirt ($730), and silk tie ($215) by Louis Vuitton; steel Ballon Bleu watch ($5,900) by Cartier.

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TIP NO.

452 FORGET THE FLAT, SOULLESS SURFACES THAT TYPIFY MOST DRESSY SUIT CLOTHS AND LOOK FOR WEAVES WITH UNCOMMON TEXTURES. THE SUBTLE HORIZONTAL GRAIN OF THIS TWO-PIECE ADDS DIMENSION AND DEPTH TO THE SUIT AND DEMANDS A CLOSER LOOK.

Two-button wool suit ($1,295) and cotton shirt ($395) by Calvin Klein Collection; cashmerewool-and-silk tie ($230)

by Brunello Cucinelli.

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THE NEXT STEP

On Townsend Ambrecht, actor and filmmaker: Wooland-cashmere coat ($2,445) and cotton shirt ($545) by Dolce & Gabbana; silk tie ($150) by Burberry London.

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ESQUIRE STYLE

THE NEXT STEP

On Joswick: Twobutton wool suit ($3,000) and cotton shirt ($590)

by Dior Homme; silk tie ($125) by Boss; leather shoes ($1,100) by Brioni.

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Double-breasted wool suit ($1,895) and cashmere turtleneck sweater ($595) by Burberry London.

CASTING BY ANDREA NINA RAMOS FOR URBAN PRODUCTIONS. GROOMING BY NICOLAS ELDIN FOR ARTLIST. PROP STYLING BY CHRIS STONE.

TIP NO.

712 IF YOU’RE GONNA LAYER BLACK ON BLACK—AND IF YOU HEED THE FOLLOWING, THAT’S A-OKAY WITH US—MAKE SURE THERE’S SOME CONTRAST IN THE TEXTURES. DIFFERENT WEAVES OF WOOL AND COTTON HOLD BLACK DYE DIFFERENTLY, SO BY MIXING A CASHMERE SWEATER WITH A WOOL JACKET, YOU’RE BOUND TO HAVE A SUBTLE, APPEALING CONTRAST BETWEEN BLACKS.

A USEFUL GUIDE TO

THE

S E R G I O P I TA M I T Z

*

Everyone is so damn mindful these days. Doing yoga and meditation, having “alone time.” Sounds like glorified napping.

Until you discover that a few minutes of meditation a day can lower blood pressure, promote stress-relieving neuroplasticity, combat autoimmune diseases, reduce anxiety, and even make you a nicer person. No joke. And you don’t have to go to an ashram or join a cult or anything like that. In fact, there’s this app you can get. . . .

FIND THESE RELAXING STORIES INSIDE:

A CALL TO ACTION, BY A MEDICAL DOCTOR (FROM HARVARD!)// SCOTT RAAB FINDS INNER PEACE// FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS// HOW TO DO IT AT HOME // AND PROOF THAT IT WORKS, STARTING ON THE NEXT PAGE. * B Y WAY O F “ M I N D F U L N E S S ,” W H I C H AC T UA L LY J U S T M E A N S “ M E D I TAT I O N .”

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THE ESQUIRE GUIDE TO MINDFULNESS

TRY THIS AT HOME!

B U E N A V I S TA I M A G E S

Don’t know how to meditate?

Neither did we! So we asked Andy Puddicombe, the cofounder of meditationfor-the-masses company Headspace and the voice on its mobile app (see “The Mindfulness Project,” page 132), to write this basic script. (Learn more at getsomeheadspace.com.)

“This is a daily practice that’s simple enough for anyone to incorporate into their everyday existence, but substantial enough to change their experience of life,” says Puddicombe. Ask a friend to read it to you slowly, setting a timer for ten minutes. It would help if this friend had a soothing voice, preferably with a British accent.

A CALL TO ACTION

BY DR. HERBERT BENSON PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE, HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL, AND DIRECTOR EMERITUS, BENSON-HENRY INSTITUTE FOR MIND BODY MEDICINE

> Sit with your hands resting

in your lap or on your knees, keeping your back straight.

> Your neck should be relaxed, with your chin slightly tucked in. > Unfocus your eyes, gazing into

the middle distance.

> Take five deep breaths, breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth. > On the last exhalation, allow your eyes to close. > Slowly settle into your body.

Observe your posture and notice the sensations where your body touches the chair and your feet meet the ground. > Feel the weight of your arms and hands resting on your legs. > Acknowledge your senses: Notice anything you can smell, hear, or taste; sensations of heat, cold, or wind. > Turn your mind inward.

Scan your body from head to toe, observing any tension or discomfort. > Scan again, this time noticing which parts of the body feel relaxed. Spend twenty seconds on each scan.

You should be meditating every day.

Stress evokes the flight-or-fight response. It increases your energy metabolism, heart rate, blood pressure, and rate of breathing. It triggers the secretion of adrenaline and noradrenaline, but because you’re not running or fighting— because, in fact, you are probably sitting at a desk or lying in bed not sleeping—your body can’t use those hormones appropriately. And unused adrenaline puts you at an increased risk for a number of diseases and conditions—anxiety, depression, insomnia, heart attacks, strokes, bowel disorders, infertility.

These lead many people to take excessive medications.

But in fact, by some estimates, at least 60 percent and as many as 90 percent of doctor visits are for problems that start with stress.

Now, we have within us a response opposite to the stress response. It’s called the relaxation response, a physiologic, genetic set of changes that counteract stress. There are scores of ways to bring forth the relaxation response. One is meditation. Another is repetitive prayer. Yoga. Tai chi. They all seem to work the same way; mainly, they change the genes’ activity, turning off genes that cause problems with stress.

Two steps bring forth the relaxation response. The first is a repetition. That repetition can

be a word, a sound, a prayer, a phrase, or even a repetitive movement. The second is seeing through other thoughts when they come to mind and returning to the repetition. Meditation breaks the chain of everyday thinking. Whether a mantra, a thought, a prayer, or a few minutes of ritualized quiet, these practices decrease heart rate, blood pressure, and rate of breath and create specific brain waves, and are wonderful in terms of dealing with stress and its ravages. To the extent that any ache or pain is being caused by stress, the relaxation response takes care of it. Literally millions of patients are now evoking it regularly. And people feel better.

M E D I TAT I O N I S E M P I R I C A L LY G O O D F O R YO U STRONGER IMMUNE SYSTEM: In a University of Wisconsin study, 25 people took an eightweek mindfulness course. Researchers then injected them and 16 control participants with a flu vaccine. The mindful group generated more antibodies in response to the virus.

CHEAPER HEALTH CARE: In a 2011 study published in the American Journal of Hypertension, patients experienced a 28% cumulative decrease in physician fees after an average of five years of practicing transcendental meditation.

IMPROVED SLEEP: Mindfulness training can decrease the time it takes to fall asleep and improve sleep time and efficiency to a degree comparable to taking three milligrams (the maximum dose) of Lunesta, a sleep drug, according to a recent University of Minnesota study.

S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3 E S Q U I R E 147

THE ESQUIRE GUIDE TO MINDFULNESS

JOHN KIEFFER

TRY THIS AT HOME!

Continued

THE MINDFULNESS PROJECT

> Then turn your awareness to your thoughts. Notice the ones that arise without attempting to alter them. > Consider why you’re sitting today. You may realize you’re hoping to stop your thoughts—remind yourself it’s impossible to do this. > Next, observe the rising and falling sensation your breathing creates in the body.

Notice where the sensations occur, whether they’re in your stomach, chest, or shoulders. > Focus on the quality of each breath, noticing whether the breaths are deep or shallow, long or short, fast or slow. > It’s normal for thoughts to bubble up at this moment, so simply guide your attention back to the breath when you realize your mind has started to wander. > Silently count your breaths as they pass: one as you inhale, two as you exhale, three on the next inhalation, and four on the exhalation, until you reach ten. > Then start again at one. > Let go of any focus on the

breath now. Spend thirty seconds just sitting. You may be inundated with thoughts or feel calm and focused—just let your mind be as it is.

> Become aware of the physical feelings—the chair beneath you, your feet on the floor, your arms and hands in your lap. Notice anything you can hear, smell, taste, or feel. > Slowly open your eyes. > Form a clear idea about what

you’re going to do next, like brushing your teeth or e-mailing your boss. It’s easy to jump up off the seat and lose the calm you’ve just created. Carry this awareness with you to the next activity.

A MOROSE AND SKEPTICAL MAN TRIES TO FIND PEACE, TEN MINUTES AT A TIME

BY S C OT T R A A B I’ve been aware for a long time that my default version of mindfulness—relentless hypervigilance spiked liberally with dread—isn’t the optimal recipe for living a balanced life. A dash of OCD, a touch of bipolar disorder, a sprinkling of sociopathy, a heavy dusting of addiction: Mix constantly and serve piping hot. Feeds exactly one raging asshole.

Medication, self- and prescribed, can help—at least a little, for at least a little while. Same with talk therapy. Movement, in the guise of exercise or not, is fine and free medicine. Sex. A sandwich. Sex and a sandwich. Whatever it takes, whatever the trade-off, simply to hush, if only for a few minutes, the howling life of the mind.

Meditation? Never really tried it. I did go to a meeting of folks interested in transcendental meditation in 1984, in Iowa City. The presenter brought a tall stack of studies proving TM’s beneficence. It was a sales pitch, nothing more. I didn’t buy it then. I’m not buying it now. I reject grandiose claims to life-altering shazam of any sort. We humans live and grow and die in tiny, hard-won increments. At best.

You might suspect, then—correctly—that I didn’t start the My Headspace ten-day program expecting to whiff satori. Offered as a beginner’s guide to practicing step-by-step no-religiosity-attached meditation—and as a portal to Headspace.com and a wide range of programs, products, and services—it’s available as a free app and costs nothing more than ten

minutes a day.

I have ten minutes a day. You do, too. According to the NSA, everyone reading these words wastes, on average, ten minutes per hour on the interwebs searching for artisanal C4 and browsing the same old jihadi sites. You’re not too busy to get quiet, to breathe, to—in the words of Andy Puddicombe, Headspace cofounder—“step back and allow calm and ease to arise.”

I know, I know. Sounds a little . . . gooey. For the full effect, you ought to see and hear it delivered by Puddicombe, a former Tibetan monk and circusarts major whose shaved head and boyish grin fairly glow, at least on my iPhone screen, with a sweet serenity unfueled by any visible body fat. But his fundamental message—“meditation is a skill, and takes practice”—is inarguable, and I found on day one that the breathing exercises alone buoyed and refreshed what passeth for my spirit. By day three, I was hungry for ten minutes spent letting go of the noise between my ears, and more aware that somewhere, not so distant, lay some pool of clarity. Not so deep, maybe, but nothing to sneeze at.

I’m still making a daily effort to meditate, without signing up officially. I’m not telling you that anything like magic is happening. Work still feels like work, the Plato’s Cave of marital concord remains fitfully lit, and I’m apparently going to stay my own worst enemy. I’m okay with all of that. And more relaxed. A bit. I think.

M E D I TAT I O N I S E M P I R I C A L LY G O O D F O R YO U LOWER BLOOD PRESSURE: Researchers from the University of Kentucky found that regular practice of transcendental meditation can reduce systolic blood pressure by about 4.7 mmHg and diastolic blood pressure by 3.2.

148 E S Q U I R E S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3

HEALTHIER HEART: In a Maharishi University study of black patients with heart disease, those who meditated had a 48% lower risk during the study period for mortality, myocardial infarction, and stroke, and 24% lower risk for cardiovascular mortality, revascularizations, and hospitalizations.

GOOD GENES: A Massachusetts General Hospital study found that relaxed response practice—meditation, deep breathing, yoga— inhibits the expression of genes that activate inflammatory response and pathways linked to cancer.—JESSIE KISSINGER

THE ESQUIRE GUIDE TO MINDFULNESS

DOES IT TAKE LONG? Ten minutes a day. But you have to do it every day.

DO THE BENEFITS EXTEND BEYOND THOSE TEN MINUTES? “Meditation can put a stamp on your brain that remains active when you’re not meditating,” says Dr. David Perlmutter, a neurologist and the coauthor of Power Up Your Brain: The Neuroscience of Enlightenment. “That is, there are physical, functional, metabolic changes that happen in the brain not only during the process of meditation, but remain residual after the process has been completed.”

D A N I TA D E L I M O N T

SUCH AS? Brain cells used or affected in a certain way can affect the cells around them, forming what are called neural networks.

“It’s not just how does one nerve cell work but how does it get along and communicate with its neighbors?” says Perlmutter. “The changes we’ve seen on the brain scans of the individuals who meditate are observable manifestations of that process of forming new networks— of nerve cells joining to other nerve cells, which is by definition neuroplasticity. The more you watch bad things on television, or read the evening news about all the horrible things that are happening around you, the more your brain becomes a conduit for negativity. The corollary is also true. The more you decide to look at things in a positive way, the easier it will be to stay positive.”

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS AND CALMLY CRAFTED ANSWERS IS MEDITATION WHAT I THINK IT IS? Yes and no, probably. It does entail quiet time with yourself, focus on breathing, and stillness, both mentally and physically. But there’s no belief system, no chanting, and no dogma. You can wear whatever you want and do it wherever you’re comfortable.

But not while driving, because you have to close your eyes.

WHY DO I NEED TO MEDITATE? Because if you’re like most people, you are overworked and stressed out. “People wake up in the morning and go full charge until they sleep at night.

Their automatic nervous system is going all day, which leads to what’s called ‘sympathetic overload,’ ” says Dr. George Kessler, an osteopath, attending physician at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, and clinical instructor at Weill Cornell Medical College. “Testosterone

150 E S Q U I R E S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3

goes down. Cholesterol goes up.

The thyroid is affected.” Kessler routinely recommends daily meditation for high blood pressure.

HOW, EXACTLY, DOES IT LOWER STRESS? “For one thing, meditation lengthens telomeres, the ends of chromosomes that contain genes,” says Kessler. “So when you have a genetic illness, to have the disease, you have to express that gene. For certain illnesses, the longer the telomeres are, the less likely you are to express it. For people who have high blood pressure, up to 80 percent of what we call central hypertension can be regulated and controlled by meditation.

Anxiety attacks, panic attacks, autoimmune diseases like lupus, asthma—all can be helped by meditation. It’s not a matter of mind over matter. It’s a matter of the mind does matter. The body listens to the mind.”

DO REGULAR PEOPLE DO IT, OR JUST MONKS AND WOMEN? Jack Dorsey, cofounder of Twitter and Square, meditates. Jack Dorsey is a billionaire. In fact, a lot of successful men meditate. Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com, has written about it. At least three editors at Esquire probably meditated today. “Meditation allows me to focus. It removes the clutter that interferes with the actual thought process,” says Roger Berkowitz, CEO of Legal Sea Foods, which has thirty-two restaurants, four thousand employees, and revenues of more than $200 million. “Before, I could wrestle with a problem for a long time. After I started meditating, I could zero in on the solution almost instantaneously. So meditation doesn’t make me smarter, but it helps me connect the dots faster. You see the problem clearly, and you see a solution clearly.”

I HAVE A LOT ON MY MIND. WHAT IF I CAN’T CONCENTRATE? Don’t worry about it. You cannot mess this up.

Thoughts will enter your mind (see “Thoughts I Hope Don’t Creep into My Head While I’m Trying to Meditate,” right), and that’s okay.

Meditation is the least stressful activity a man can engage in, and much cheaper than blood-pressure medication.

THOUGHTS I HOPE DON’T CREEP INTO MY HEAD WHILE I’M TRYING TO MEDITATE

BY A. J. JACOBS

I’m meditating. Meditating.

Got to calm the ol’ monkey mind. My mind is not going to act like a monkey. No more masturbating and tossing feces for this mind.

Who was the first person to put human clothes on monkeys? That guy must have been a genius.

The Louis C. K. of his day.

Meditating, meditating.

I wonder if Fletch holds up. Breathe from the diaphragm. You never hear about diaphragms anymore. It’s all condoms and morning-after pills.

Maybe that’s just because I’m old and married. When am I going to stop thinking about vaginas when I hear the word diaphragm? And 69. When will I see the number 69 on a Verizon bill and not think of oral sex?

Maybe when I’m sixtynine. Remember when Downton Abbey used the word underbutler? Wonder what Cher is tweeting now.

Breathe. Maybe Google Glass will have a meditation app. You can get Zen points or something. Man, I’m bored. How often do they clean these meditation pillows? Lotus position kind of hurts. And position.

When will I hear position and not think missionary?

Do dogs ever do it nondoggie-style? That would be a good New Yorker cartoon—a conservative dog who wants to do it missionary style. I shouldn’t have had that chicken tikka masala. I bet Cleopatra was a butterface. Breathe in.

Breathe out. The ol’ in-andout. Dammit.

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THE UNIFINISHED REVOLUTION OF

JOSE

Jose Almonte is not as scary as some people paint him to be.

Upon closer scrutiny, the “sinister” former National Security Adviser is someone with a deep-rooted Christian faith and an indomitable love for country. Now in his 80s, he has something to say and anyone who won’t listen should be shot for treason.

BY MIA GONZALEZ PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHARLES BUENCONSEJO

152 E S Q U I R E S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3

CREDITS GO HERE

ALMONTE

CREDITS GO HERE

S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3 E S Q U I R E 153

ometime during the Ramos administration, Malacañang reporters received a Christmas card from a Palace official that left all of them stumped. On the card was a portrait of a man wearing a wide-brimmed hat, riding a carabao. Beneath it was written: “On top of my carabao is me and on top of me is my hat.—a Southeast Asian citizen.”

The reporters, mostly veterans and a few newbies including myself, wondered what the “cerebral” National Security Adviser Jose Almonte meant but even their collective curiosity could not compel anyone to ask him. Feigning knowledge seemed better than admitting ignorance to a man who knew how to put people, including journalists, in their proper place.

Fifteen years later, I sit across the 81-yearold Almonte at the dining table of his modest Greenhills condo-office for this interview. His black curls have been replaced by a white buzz; his face seems more predisposed to grinning than scowling, giving him the appearance of a concerned grandfather rather than a retired public servant with a fascinating and action-packed past worthy of a hit HBO miniseries. Though 154 E S Q U I R E S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3

he encourages me to ask about anything— compensation for a long-ago slight to Palace reporters who covered him—his wellguarded private life discourages prying.

When I ask what he aspired to be, growing up in Albay before and after World War II, he prepares to respond but stops almost immediately. He says, “You know, this is the first time I’m interviewed this way. I was very eloquent telling you what is the problem of the nation. But this one is new.”

The office is tidy and simple, befitting the image of a man known for not helping himself to the trappings of power. This, Almonte says, is something people find hard to understand, given the duties he performed for the administrations of President Corazon C. Aquino and especially President Fidel V. Ramos.

He traces it back to his upbringing in Albay. Born in Barangay Estancia in Malinao, a third class municipality, Almonte was a “son of the soil” as he called it, but he never felt his poverty because of the deep spiritual upbringing that his parents made possible even without a chapel around.

“My parents were very God-fearing, and just to instill the love of God or the fear of God at the same time is more than enough for me to be guided accordingly. With-

out telling me anything beyond that, just that there is a Superbeing was more than enough for me to restrain my natural impulses because just like any human being we are all tied to the world,” he says.

Almonte says that even as a child he already sensed that he had to do something to change the situation. “It’s quite mystical.

I cannot say that as a young kid, but I knew that the situation has to change. That has been my sense,” he says. What he called a “simple act of selfless concern” gave him a chance to pursue his goal. The late Colonel David Abundo of Philippine Military Class ‘54 wrote to him and encouraged him to enter the Academy so he could get a college education.

Almonte experienced culture shock at the PMA, but unlike other plebes, it was a pleasant surprise. He was provided all his needs and enjoyed good food. Even hazing was a breeze for someone who grew up in very tough conditions. “Of course life [in the PMA] is very hard with hazing etc., but I’m used to a hard life… ‘Yung iba nga umiiyak, ako naman nagtataka. Kasi sa akin hindi mahirap ‘yon. Mas mahirap ang pinanggalingan ko,” he says with a laugh.

After he graduated in 1956, Second Lieutenant Almonte found himself in Gitingan,

on the border of Laguna and Quezon in the Sierra Madre mountains, leading a platoon against insurgents. There he began an enduring friendship with then Captain Fidel V. Ramos that saw them through a people power revolution that overthrew their Commander-in-Chief, and a presidency where they strived to put the Philippine house in order by dismantling monopolies in many sectors that would continue to impact the economy.

In Gitingan, the two young officers discussed fundamental questions that bothered them. Why were they ordered to kill the people who had paid for their education, and why were those people rebelling against the government in the first place?

“The rebels that we were hunting were the poor Filipinos. We, the soldiers, who were sent to hunt them and kill them, were also poor Filipinos. For whom are these poor rebels, poor Filipinos killing each other? Is it for the common good? Or is it to protect so-called vested interests?”

The nagging question kindled his war against vested interests which continued to burn as he went through military and civilian offices from the Macapagal administration to the Marcos regime.

From 1962 to 1965, he was Assistant Chief of Intelligence of the Presidential Security Unit assigned to President Diosdado Macapagal and his family.

He was also Special Assistant to the Executive Secretary where he helped the Philippine government “chart a more independent course in its foreign policy.” He was involved in laying the groundwork for the establishment of diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China.

It was during the Marcos regime that Almonte gained his legendary reputation as someone “sneaky, shadowy, mysterious and enigmatic.” Like many others, former Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban had this fleeting first impression of Almonte, which he admitted at the launch of Almonte’s book, We Must Level the Playing Field, in 2007.

Panganiban likened his friend to “some sort of James Bond and Napoleon Solo combined but without the wine and the women.” Which state spy comes close to the real JoeAl? Almonte says he is neither, and tells me a necessarily abridged version of how he gained that notoriety.

Ferdinand Marcos won the presidency in 1965 on the campaign promise that he would not send Philippine combat troops to fight with US forces in Vietnam, but he realized he could not govern well without

US help. Marcos had to compromise and agreed to send the Philippine Civic Action Group to Vietnam (Philcavg) to provide medical and engineering services.

Captain Almonte was assigned to go to Vietnam as a counterintelligence officer ahead of the Philcavg, which was sent to War Zone C in Tay Ninh. It was believed that the 2000-man contingent might suffer casualties of as much as 25 percent so it brought 500 Philippine flags, to be draped on the coffins of fallen soldiers. If that happened, the Filipinos would support combat action for Philippine troops in Vietnam, which Marcos would have to do to ensure his re-election in 1969, says Almonte.

With this in mind, Almonte decided on his own to embed himself with the Viet Cong as Captain Almonte, to keep the Philcavg from suffering casualties.

“I did not join them like Napoleon Solo

PANGANIBAN LIKENED HIS FRIEND TO “SOME SORT OF JAMES BOND AND NAPOLEON SOLO COMBINED BUT WITHOUT THE WINE AND THE WOMEN.” WHICH STATE SPY COMES CLOSE TO THE REAL JOEAL? or James Bond where infiltration is in disguise. I was not in disguise. I was myself,” he says. Almonte convinced the Viet Cong that it would be counterproductive for them to fight with Filipino troops who were there for civic duties. And so, the Philippine flags remained mostly unused until the end of Philcavg’s duty.

Almonte says there is not enough time to detail his three-year stay with the Viet Cong but only that it got “so complicated” that in 1967, General William Childs Westmoreland, Commander of the Military Assistance Command (MACV) in Vietnam, told Almonte that US forces had captured documents proving that he stayed with the Viet Cong. “He asked me to just ride the B-52 and we’ll bomb them to Stone Age. I refused. I said, ‘Why?’” When Westmoreland demanded to know why herefused to obey him when he was an ally, and that

what he was doing was an act of betrayal, he told Westmoreland that he had trained with the Special Forces in Fort Bragg, where the general was a commanding officer. Westmoreland’s statements were written along the camp’s road in big bold letters, and he picked one as his personal guide.

“I said, ‘Sir, that is what you taught us: The word of the soldier is his bond. My word is never to betray the Allied Forces under you and never to betray the Viet Congs, whom I am now with. So whatever you do is alright but I cannot comply.’ He was so shocked by my statement. He embraced me like a father and said, ‘Okay, okay,’” says Almonte.

Almonte concludes, “My mystery is because I think I’m so open,” he says, laughing. “And that is the enigma.”

In 1979, he joined the Reform the Armed Forces Movement (RAM) upon the invitation of disgruntled young officers led

by Colonel Gregorio “Gringo” Honasan. Honasan, now a senator, says that Almonte struck him as “deeply spiritual” when they first met. He says Almonte told the young officers that the Armed Forces “is not a private security agency or a pretorian guard of any sitting administration but the Armed Forces of the people.”

“He did not force himself upon us.

He told us about the fundamental core values of the military profession which led us to decide what we had to do as a reform movement. In fact, he was one of the influential personalities who shaped our reform agenda,” the senator says.

Almonte believes no job is difficult unless it meant a reversal of commitment, which he encountered when he joined the ouster movement against Marcos. When he worked for the Marcos regime, Almonte wanted the New Society to succeed because it seemed admirable though the means to achieving it was debatable.

“I had to give him [Marcos] some good will, some amount of patriotism, of sincerity on his part unless he proved otherwise.

So in that sense, I worked with him but with all those constraints, qualifications.

Now, trying to bring him down then was not easy because it’s a reversal of commitment, although the commitment is to the nation not to him, but it was through him.

So that is a difficulty. But I look at it as a challenge,” he says.

Almonte was among those who wanted Marcos to remain in the country to stand trial and be convicted. He still believes that S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3 E S Q U I R E 155

letting him go on exile was a lost political opportunity. “It could have tested the collective sense of justice of the Filipino people and to me that is crucial in nation-building….

That should have been the first demonstration of the nation similar to the impeachment of Rene Corona,” says Almonte.

When Ramos became president in 1992, Almonte became his National Security Adviser and Director-General of the National Security Council (NSC). Among the first executive issuances of Ramos was Administrative Order No. 2 which “reoriented” the activities of the NSC Director-General and the intelligence community “towards attaining broader national goals” including social and economic development.

AO 2 gave Almonte the authority, finally, to practice what he had long preached, and moved to promote equitable growth by dismantling monopolies in key sectors such as telecommunications, inter-island shipping, banking and insurance.

“The effects of their reforms are now visible,” says former Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Cayetano Paderanga Jr. Paderanga first met Almonte in 1987. “I was intrigued because my immediate impression was that he was incisive, deep and quite knowledgeable,” he says.

“He gave FVR the big picture,” says veteran journalist Marites Vitug. Like others, Vitug was also initially intimidated

by Almonte and thought he was “sinister.”

But this changed when she and fellow journalist Glenda Gloria interviewed Almonte for a story on socialite Rosemarie “Baby” Arenas during the Ramos administration.

“He was quite open and talked to us after the story came out. He doesn’t take things personally….After he stepped down, I realized that he did important things. And that he wasn’t sinister; he was a good person,” says Vitug.

Asked what he would want to see happen in his lifetime, Almonte says he would like to see more reforms similar to the dismantling of the PLDT monopoly, which would make more opportunities available to the people. He admits that doing this can cause disparity since those who can take advantage of the opportunities would be the best-equipped, risking a wider income gap.

But he believes that the next generation “would resolve the other problems generated by the opportunities now.”

“It’s just like medicine with side effect.

Kahit na may side effect, at least hindi ka ma-

mamatay. Then if you recover, that’s the time you take care of the side effect; a poor analogy but this is what I would like,” he says.

About halfway through the nearly threehour interview, Almonte finally makes a pitch for something close to his heart, his “four conditions” for bringing out the best in the Filipino. Anyone would feel unpatriotic not to take note of it. It is a message he wants to inject in the minds of younger people whom he believes can still make a difference. This is apparently why he

try, against the communist insurgency and the remaining Muslim secessionists. “If we cannot end this, we cannot develop. Let me illustrate to you: If Lincoln did not take the risk in 1868 in emancipating the slaves in America, America may still be in war up to today. Will they be a superpower? No. That is why Lincoln, he was assassinated for these things but he is credited as one of the best presidents of America, one of the few best,” Almonte says.

The second condition is to complete all the land and non-land reforms needed, and the third, to end the stranglehold of vested groups on the Philippine State and its regulatory agencies which has dampened the competitiveness of the Philippines in the region.

“In reality, we have elections. But afterward, Malacañang is captured by the funder, by the elite. So you have a state that is under the control of the oligarchy. You have a state that is captured by the oligarchy.

That’s the problem,” he says.

The fourth condition, he says, is something that Mr. Aquino has already started with his death knell on the wangwang culture. It is to live by the values that our heroes fought and died for. “Why is a Filipino not definitive on defining who is a Filipino? Why is he ambiguous in the understanding of a Filipino?

My analysis is that the Filipino is confused because the nation, their leaders, the educational system perhaps, did not put the necessary emphasis in ensuring that this nation live by the values that our heroes, our martyrs, fought and died for. These are the values of honor, of human dignity, of justice, of liberty, of compassion. Our leaders, do they exhibit this?” Almonte says there have been cases when Philippine leaders “demonstrated very embarrassing behavior that derogate on these values.”

One example, he said, was in 2004, which prompted US Secretary of State Colin Powell to vent out his frustration to “any Filipino” through Philip Kaplan, the US Ambassador to Beijing, who chose to meet with Almonte.

According to Kaplan, Powell was angry at President Arroyo for pulling out the Philippine contingent from Iraq after she had personally assured the US official that she would not under any circumstance withdraw the forces—an assurance that Powell had earlier conveyed to President George W. Bush. Powell had to apologize to Bush and said that in his 40 years of service, he

HE USED TO ACT THIS WAY BECAUSE HE WAS FRUSTRATED WITH THE IMPATIENCE OF YOUNG JOURNALISTS WHO WANTED SIMPLE ANSWERS TO COMPLICATED ISSUES, ESPECIALLY ON MATTERS OF NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT. NOW, HIS ULTIMATE TARGET AUDIENCE IS THE YOUTH

156 E S Q U I R E S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3

agrees to meet with bloggers and anybody else interested in hearing his vision for the nation, hopeful that his message would get across to the youth.

“The old men never mind….Those people like me, we’re all fertilizer anyway,” says Almonte, who turns 82 in November.

He asks his secretary for a copy of his Christmas message last year. It is his prescription for nation-building on a sheet of paper measuring four inches by five inches.

His face lights up. He speaks with such urgency that I feel as if I were the last person to hear it.

“Look at the Philippines from 1946 when we recovered our independence up to today. That’s 67 years. Was this nation really able to implement its Constitution and its laws fully? Hindi. We bribe the courts. We prostitute our politics. The system is so weak. It has no strength to prevent it. How could we change the environment so that we change that situation where the nation is paralyzed to even implement its Constitution and its laws?”

One condition, he says, is for the government to end the internal war in the coun-

had never met someone like Mrs. Arroyo who not only lied to him, but was also a head of state and a woman, says Almonte, recalling Kaplan’s words.

Mrs. Arroyo was pressured to go back on her word to save 46-year-old truck driver Angelo dela Cruz, who was kidnapped by Iraqi insurgents and threatened with execution unless Philippine troops were withdrawn from Iraq a month ahead of schedule.

Almonte, who was still talking with Mrs. Arroyo then, did not agree with Bush’s policy in Iraq but he advised the President that since she had decided to support the Bush administration, it was a matter of “national honor” to stand by that commitment. He said dela Cruz had said that he had accepted his fate and only wished the repatriation of his remains to the Philippines. “I said we can make a monument for him using 1,000 sacks of cement—that would be bigger than the Rizal monument. We’ll put it in his hometown and we will make him the icon of the OFWs. Just do not withdraw the troops because that’s our national honor,” he says.

At the time, Mrs. Arroyo was being accused of poll fraud by the camp of Fernando Poe Jr. and was under threat of people power. She had to make a popular decision.

“It just shows you that Gloria sacrificed a national value that our heroes died and fought for—national honor, national dignity. For what? For her political expediency. Do you see what I mean? What do you teach the people with that?” he asks.

He says Mr. Aquino had to cater to China because of the botched Quirino grandstand hostage rescue in 2010. The Philippines joined China’s “boycott” of the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo, Norway, in 2010, where jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo was an awardee.

“Imagine, my friends from outside called me and said, ‘Joe, we can understand other presidents who did not send delegations on China’s behest to Oslo but we cannot understand your President because he is the son of a martyr for democracy; human rights. And the son of a political saint, the mother. He embodies both the mother and the father. What he did is entirely something we cannot understand.’ What value do you teach there? You see my point?”

Almonte says Philippine society cannot produce a reformist president without his prescribed conditions but concedes that Mr. Aquino seems to be trying, at least.

When he was no longer a Palace official, businessmen would call Almonte to complain about alleged corruption during the Estrada and Arroyo administrations. But

since Mr. Aquino took over, he has not received such calls.

“Not asking commission [from businessmen] is very good, and that is to the credit of the President. That is why the businessmen are so happy. That’s why he is being given—not we—it’s the President who is being given this very high rating, Almonte says.

What he would like to see from Mr. Aquino is for him to become the “last cacique” which he says will happen once Hacienda Luisita, the Cojuangco family estate, is parceled out to its beneficiaries.

“He can do anything. Not only because he’s very popular; it’s by accident of birth.

He’s a cacique. And he is the one who can end the cacique regime,” Almonte says.

He says that in the same way that Ramos was able to sell military bases and integrate Muslim rebels into the Armed

Forces and the National Police during his time because he was a “professional soldier through and through,” so too can Mr. Aquino lead the way for other big landowners in the country. Almonte may get his wish yet; the Department of Agrarian Reform would announce a few months later that the distribution of Hacienda Luisita would be completed by September, after passing the most contentious stages in the acquisition of the estate under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law.

E

ven if he has been out

of public service since 1992, Almonte has been busy with speaking engagements in and out of the country. He remains a favored resource person and is known to be a source of wise counsel for officials not only at home but abroad.

“My policy is always to do everything I can to help them because it’s my only duty. I think I owe it to them and to God. Look, I am being paid by the government. I still have my pension. They are very concerned about the situation and I do help them,” he says, but declines to name any of them.

Palace Communications Secretary Ricky Carandang admits that he has been seeking advice from Almonte, whom he has known since he was in media. He met him through Glenda Gloria and Marites Vitug when they were all together in Newsbreak.

“He’s considered as one of the elder statesmen of Southeast Asia. So when there’s an issue affecting the region, they seek him out, including officials from other governments,” Carandang says.

Almonte has spoken extensively on the challenges of terrorism, and the challenge posed by China, which he had predicted would be a continuing problem. Inside his main office, he motions to a framed page of the Far East Economic Review editorial cartoon that appeared on its May 7, 1997 issue. President Ramos is on a tugboat bearing the Philippine flag, confronting a Chinese ship. Mr. Ramos brandished a flyswatter and demanded, “I order you to leave immediately!” It was the only frame that he brought with him when he left NICA. “This to me was very close to my heart because I knew it’s going to be a problem,” he said.

I

ask if he plans to write an autobiography but he seems disinterested, though he admits that people have approached him about it. He says his problem in pursuing the project is that he has never kept a record about himself. He doesn’t keep old pictures; he has no baby photos because his family couldn’t afford them.

“I have sentiments. But I don’t live with my past,” he says.

Some parts of his past he has chosen to live with are displayed on his shelf. One is represented by his photo with the late British PM Margaret Thatcher. It was taken at the residence of the British Ambassador, the venue of a luncheon for Lady Thatcher who visited Manila for a speaking engagement in 1996. Almonte vividly remembers their meeting. He says Thatcher demanded 158 E S Q U I R E S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3

insane enough to believe that the dignity of Flor Contemplacion is equal to the dignity of the Queen of England. That’s the reason,” Almonte recalls.

A

fter a lull while we

that he be seated next to her at the luncheon, displacing Finance Secretary Roberto de Ocampo, and they talked for two to three hours.

“She lectured me. She told me, ‘General, I want you to continue what you are doing,” which showed that Thatcher was monitoring the key reforms of the Ramos administration, of which Almonte has been credited as the chief architect, and the backlash he received from those at the losing end.

“She told me, ‘Don’t be intimidated by these; don’t believe them. I know what you want. That is what you do. Forget them,’” he recalls.

Another memorable meeting, he says, was in 1995, when Jusuf Wanandi, chairman of Indonesian think-tank Institution of Strategic and International Studies, paid him a visit. It was upon the request of their “common friend,” former Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew who had an important question for him. This was at the height of public outrage over the execution of Flor Contemplation in Singapore. Lee, through Wanandi, told Almonte that he was very proud of Filipinos and had fought for their freedom but he could not understand why they have gone “collectively insane” because of the execution of one Filipino, “a domestic helper and a woman at that.”

“I said, Jusuf, tell our common friend: No. 1, he is right, that the Filipinos have gone collectively insane because of the Flor Contemplacion issue. Number 2, tell him that the reason why they have gone collectively insane is because they are

had coffee, he says, “Mia, you can ask all the difficult [questions], embarrassing or what. You covered me before. I was so unfair to you people.” He fixes his eyes on his coffee cup. “I think I didn’t want to talk to you [the Malacanang Press Corps].

You know, sabi ko sa inyo noon,” he turns to his side, points his index finger to an imaginary person and says in a loud, gruff voice, “Do you know what you’re talking about?”

We laugh together. He smiles and says, “I’m sorry, hija.” I still laugh but he doesn’t join me this time.

He sips his coffee and says, “No, I’m sorry. I’m apologizing.”

He reveals he used to act this way because he was frustrated with the impatience of young journalists who wanted simple answers to complicated issues, especially on matters of national development. Now, his ultimate target audience is the youth and he is willing to clarify his answer many times over to drive home his point. His desire to reach out to the younger generation is evident. Through the Foundation for Economic Freedom, he published a pamphlet, Why are Filipinos killing fellow Filipinos? It was meant to bring his 2007 book to a wider, younger audience. He dedicated his collected speeches, Toward One Southeast Asia, to the “young people of Southeast Asia.”

His message to young Filipinos is that they are equal to anybody in the world. “All we have to do is to give him the opportunity so that his potential could be realized, his talents could come out and give meaning to that potential,” he says, effectively summing up his life story in one sentence.

As I wrap up the interview, I decide to raise the enigmatic Christmas card. Almonte is puzzled why no one bothered to ask him back then. They were just plain scared of him, I say; some of them still are. He laughs heartily, along with his secretary, Edna, who is in the kitchenette.

“Simple. It’s about freedom. It’s about independence. On top of me is my carabao.

On top of the carabao is me. On top of me is my hat. What was not articulated is on top of my hat is God; nobody else.”

CREDITS GO HERE

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PREVIOUSLY ON ESQUIRE...

NOVEMBER 1968 B Y L U I S K AT I G B A K

O

nly Esquire editor Harold Hayes had the guts

and the nuts to assemble this stunning team of underground intellectual mavericks to go to the fateful Democratic Convention in Chicago in 1968 and report, their way, to the nation."

That's how cover designer George Lois (in his 2003 book, $ellebrity) summed up the lead story of this U.S. issue, a story that inspired one of his more somber and striking creations.

45 years after the fact and the cover still has power. The stark, gritty black-and-white photography of Carl Fischer, the blood-red contrast of the Esquire nameplate, the atmosphere of violence just perpetrated and ever-impending, and the gazes of the four writers—ranging from indignant to mournful to accusatory, with one of them bordering on nonchalance—all of this still has its

160 E S Q U I R E S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3

impact, as Lois would no doubt be proud to know.

It’s possible to appreciate the cover—the concept, the composition, the sense of unease—without even knowing who these people are. Of course, if you're familiar with them, it has that much more weight: there’s Beat Generation icon William Burroughs (some of us are still recovering from reading his third novel, Naked Lunch, which was so controversial it sparked a court case under U.S. sodomy laws); vagabond/criminal-turned-writer/ activist Jean Genet; darkly absurd satirist and inventor of the New Journalism Terry Southern (who also wrote for the movies and Saturday Night Live); and John Sack, who covered every American war over half a century. Pictured standing over the “Christ-like image of a jeans-clad student” lying in the gutter, they were, as Lois called them, “the wildest literary men of the time.”