Now/here no/where woman

"The first-timer may find the space narrow, but it is everything an ideal bookstore should be: glass windows that allow plenty of light in, quiet, no crowds (except on opening day), books not wrapped in plastic so they can be readily perused." Thank you, Brookside Baby , for the wonderful article. Some day I'm going to go visit La Terrasse. And I just hope that Julie's place will always have enough buchi for me, in spite of the deluge of new customers that will surely make their way to the bakery!

" Anyone's who's ever had a dream, anyone who's ever played a part, anyone who's ever been lonely, and anyone who's ever split apart... " Sweet Jane, Cowboy Junkies cover.

Why do people insist on making claims to having conquered this or that mountain? When you get out there, the most you can claim to conquer are your own limitations and fears. You are nothing to the mountain. Go conquer your ego instead. Try it. It's tougher than taking a hike or a bike.

Last week Mt Cloud Bookshop was honored with a visit from Mrs. Cecile Afable, doyenne of local media and one of the notorious yet well-loved Three Witches of Baguio. She recounted how, in the mid-sixties she opened the Ato Bookshop and Art Gallery on the ground floor of Insular Life Building, on Session Road. The Ato had a wide collection of Filipiniana. There was a weaving loom to one side and two weavers would come in and do their work in the shop. The Ato also carried prison art. She wrote in the Mt Cloud guestbook: "The books were confiscated by the soldiers of Marcos so we closed..." Mabuhay kayo, Auntie Cecile! Tomorrow, Oct. 13, at 6PM, Mt Cloud Bookshop is proud to be hosting the book launching of MONDO MARCOS: Writings on Martial Law and Marcos Babies/Mga Panulat sa Batas Militar at ng Marcos Babies, edited by Frank Cimatu and Roland Tolentino. With the presence of Frank Cimatu and a number of the authors who contributed poetry and prose to the English and Fil...

We has a new playground! Yesssss! Amateur berm attack.  Pro berm attack. My guardian demonyos get high! Racing to get down before the rain comes in from the neighboring mountain. My Superman after a day in the playground. Even if we've been together for years, I still think he's so handsome!

From Karlo Altomonte: "... some of those inside the Manila Cathedral that day were simply to pray, get closer to God. Perhaps one or two were praying for forgiveness, for the soul of a departed loved one, for salvation. Not everyone inside that church that day were either pro or anti-RH bill, some of them perhaps don’t care about it at all, so I will play the party pooper and stand by my opinion that while the cause is a very worthy one, there are other ways."

I just love firebrands who will stick their necks out for what they believe in, and who do it with style and a large dose of imagination too. Some people talk too much but do nothing, while others simply can't see past their own noses. I, for one, am obsessed with this 2-week old zit on my nose that just refuses to shrivel up and die. In his advocacy for reproductive health in the Philippines, a country held hostage in the dark ages by the Church,  Carlos Celdran takes things a big step further and says it like it is.

This morning at a meeting in Star Cafe on post-calamity early recovery with a Benguet municipal mayor, a UNDP documentation and community journalism maven, and some people who expertly flow back and forth across the bounds of governance and civil society, somebody passed me a book of love poems. Feigning absorption in the discussion on disaster risk reduction I held the book under the table and opened it to a random page. Wrestling Our oneness is the wrestlers', fierce and close,        Thrusting and thrust; One life in dual effort for one prize, --        We fight, and must; For soul with soul does battle evermore        Till love be trust. Our distance is love's severance; sense divides,        Each is but each; Never the very hidden spirit of thee        My life doth reach; Twain! since love athwart the gulf that needs        Kisses and speech. ...