Carmen Guerrero Nakpil's "Myself, Elsewhere" is both an autobiography and memoir of pre-war Ermita, written at age 84. It covers the period between 1922 and 1945.
Gilda Cordero Fernando's "The Last Full Moon" marks her 75th birthday and spans the 1930s to 2005.
Both show rare and tantalizing glimpses into the lifestyle of the elite of old Manila that those of succeeding generations will never know except through personal accounts such as these.
Picked it up at Booksale for cheap (ain't Booksale just GREAT! they should give the owners a medal for bringing inexpensive literature to the masses). It's a biography of mother and daughter Alva and Consuelo Vanderbilt, of the American railway fortune - where the moral of the story is, riches can't always make you happy.
It was the late 1890s, when opulence and decadence were the hallmarks of the lifestyles of the rich, while frightful squalor and poverty afflicted the less fortunate. Fortified by great wealth, ensconced in her grand mansion called "Marble House", Alva did not have much to do in her cosseted life save to look after her milionaire husband William Kissam Vanderbilt and their children (Consuelo, William Jr., and Harold Stirling), and to seek dominance in upscale New York and Newport society, dominated at that time by Mrs Astor.
In her quest to become "Queen of Newport" during that fussy, protocol-laden era, the determined and bossy Alva married off Consuelo at 19 to the 9th Duke of Marlborough. Not only was the teenager tall, beautiful, and endowed with swan-like grace and high intelligence, she was also obscenely rich, with a dowry in the millions of dollars.
The Duke, called "Sunny" (from one of his hereditary titles, "Earl of Sunderland", and not because his nature was particularly bright), only wanted Consuelo's money to save his family's aged ruin of an ancestral palace, Blenheim Castle.
Though Consuelo was in love with another man (socialite Winthrop Rutherfurd), Alva railroaded the marriage through. Naturally, the marriage was not happy and did not last, ending later in divorce. Consuelo married again, to Lt. Col. Jacques Balsan, the love of her life, with whom she spent her twilight years.
Aside from being a window into the past, it is a brilliant story that reinforces an idea I've formed through the years - that many times, first marriages don't work out and it's the second one that brings wedded bliss and happiness.
I had seen them at Fully Booked (PowerPlant mall branch) early or middle of this year and thought they were lovely but way, way too expensive for a notebook. But I couldn't get them out of my head; over the months I'd go back to the store, look at the display, and wonder whether I should finally get one or not.
I'm talking about Moleskines, the hip hot notebook that almost every creative person in the know is carrying around. Moleskines are touted as the notebook used by literary and art stars - Hemingway, Chatwin, Picasso.
Actually, "moleskins" or notebooks with a cover of oilcloth-covered cardboard have been around for over a hundred years and were made in France by a few select stationers, until demand for the old-fashioned notebooks died. The last moleskin notebook maker, based in Tours, France, stopped making them in 1986.
In 1998, the Italian company Modo e Modo revived the old tradition and sold them under the trademark "Moleskine". And that is how they are known to aficionados - writers, artists, other creatives, the intelligentsia, academics, scientists, and wannabes. Writer Neil Gaiman always carries one.
I must profess my profound admiration for the Modo e Modo marketing machine - from 30,000 in sales early on to more than 3 million now, their hype is certainly effective. Consumers feel that with a Moleskine they can channel the creativity of the artists and writers of the past who used similar notebooks. Farfetched idea, but it's often observed in anthropology - "sympathetic magic".
Googling the 'Net, you'll see a lot of references to Moleskines. They are used as planners by IT people using "GTD" (Getting Things Done) and other time-management methods after applying "moleskine hacks" (modifications). They are also popular as art albums, scrapbooks, for writing stories in, and as journals and diaries. I've found out that some people actually use them to take notes!
Moleskines are also available at Powerbooks, but at present stocks are depleted everywhere. Wait till the first week of December to satisfy your Moleskine cravings.
They come in pocket and large sizes, with plain, ruled, squared, and watercolor paper (for the sketchbooks). There are also daily and weekly planners, as well as Japanese albums and memo pockets. The default color is black, but they issued a limited edition red planner for 2008, and not too long ago offered Shantung silk-covered variations in blue, red, green, and plum as part of their Van Gogh Museum collection. The colors do evoke the hues in the painter's works.
They are very expensive, but if you are an aesthete, one who loves paper and pen, then you must have one. Or more.
I plan to get two pocket notebooks - one plain and one ruled - and fill them in with words and drawings. Most likely my sketches will be of quilt blocks and quilt designs. The words, essays and other random ramblings.
I can't wait to curl up with a nice hot Double Tall Raspberry Mocha Five Pumps Nonfat No Whip One Splenda, a pack of gel pens, and those Moleskines I'm yearning for. Coffee, paper, and ink - with these tools I can create my own new world.
www.moleskine.com ->mother ship
www.moleskinerie.com -> 24/7 MoleskineCon
Here are more great and compelling reasons to drink coffee...as if I needed any!
From Reader's Digest, Sept 2006, UK edition:
Coffee: A Health Drink?
If you regard your caffeine habit as a vice, think again. Recent studies suggest moderate coffee consumption may be good for you.
* Research in The Journal of the American Medical Association found those drinking three cups a day were five times less likely to develop Parkinson's disease.
* A Harvard School of Public Health study found men who drank more than six cups daily reduced their risk for Type 2 diabetes by 50% and women by nearly 30%.
* Japan's Cancer Institute says 3-4 cups daily may halve the risk of liver cancer.
Coffee also makes you more mentally alert and capable of doing tasks that require concentration. As Pastor Steve of UCM said at our Baptism class last April 2007, "Anybody mind if I go get a Starbucks? That way I'll talk twice as fast and we'll be done in half the time!"
It's that time of the year once again, when our favorite "third place" rolls out bottles of minty joy to squirt into cups of hot or cold mocha. Red sprinkles on top of mounds of whipped cream are an added pleasure.
Anything sweet and creamy and gooey like cupcakes and muffins....
It's true, what they say...after experiencing the joys of espresso, you can't go back to instant. Except in an emergency.
Now, I grew up believing that coffee was bad for you. Being petite, as a child I was told not to drink coffee or I'd never grow tall. When I was nine, I endured an entire year of weekly growth hormone shots. At 21, I reached my full height of 4 feet 10 inches - but still never took a drop of coffee. The old childhood conditioning stuck.
Once, in college, I did take a cup of coffee at a student political meeting (I didn't want to look out of place) - but there was more milk than coffee in my cup, and I must have emptied half the contents of the sugar bowl. The waiters were snickering. "Para kang bata," they said. ("You take your coffee like a child.")
At 34 I had to go back to work after ten years of being a domestic goddess. As a horseracing sportscaster on cable TV, I had to stay up until midnight four days a week, every other week. I wasn't used to burning the midnight oil. In the studio, simply everyone was sucking down that brown fluid like it was water. I figured, what the hey - I'm not going to get any taller, am I?
Now I can't work without a caffeine fix. The more caffeine in my cup, the better. I got over the palpitations and jitters. Now it's pure mental alertness. My drink of choice? A double tall Raspberry Cafe Mocha non-fat no whip one Splenda from Starbucks.
Aahh, the joys of coffee!
Ground coffee can also be bought in the markets of Lipa City. Last Oct 30, some friends and I visited Garing's (a coffee grower for generations), where they display roasted Excelsa and Liberica (barako) beans in glass cases. You select and buy the beans you want, which are then ground right then and there. Fresh! The aroma is heady and heavenly.
Prices are cheaper in the market - around P170 per kilo of ground barako - compared to manufacturers like Figaro, Siete Baracos, and Merlo. However, the manufacturers offer blends and flavors not available in the market.
To brew coffee the "farm" way: in a saucepan, boil fresh ground coffee and brown sugar to taste.
As a collector both of business books and Starbucks-related reads, I am especially gleeful when I come across something that combines both. Imagine my surprise when I saw the lone copy of this book displayed at National Bookstore-Podium. I snatched it up immediately, cackling maniacally all the way to the cash counter. Mwahahaha.
Written by a financial journalist from the revered Wall Street Journal, Karen Blumenthal tries to analyze what makes some stocks thrive and others wither despite promising starts (and starting promises).
She chose to analyze Starbucks after researching into it and finding its stock "an investor's masterpiece, a consistently healthy, growing contributor to the American dream".
This is an attempt to "demystify Stockland", following the course of Starbucks stock over a year, taking us (as the blurb says) "behind the scenes at the annual stockholders meeting, into the inner sanctum of Starbucks's corporate headquarters...[it is] a compelling biography of one of the world's most recognized brands."
