#WHWN
Wish upon 2023
At its core, through trials and errors, our desire is to elevate our world to the level of utopian science fiction. Other than inhabiting, possessing, and controlling it, we have reshaped it, but here we are. Can we get it back in shape?
Your inner poet can end the war in Ukraine
Poetry does make better writers and also better people.
Make it your business to make it better
But first New Year greetings from eight of the icons of the Philippine private sector.
Supersize your dreams—and make them all come true
Size does matter, especially in this season of oversized everything.
Let the season sparkle in all colors, but I'll be in black
Filipino designer Chris Nick de los Reyes pays tribute to the tuxedo and the terno sleeve in his first global collection, unveiled at LA Fashion Week
Vengeance and fashion
Life is back as we know it. Are we all dressed for it? In fashion, are we back with a vengeance? We turn to some of our favorite designers for their ideas on revenge dressing or is there such a thing?
Extra! Extra!
‘There and back again’ refers to a crucial point in a journey in which we may find ourselves looking at where we have been to make sense of where we are and where we are going.
All things fun and fab—and Filipino—at Presente by Artefino
This Christmas popup at Powerplant Mall at Rockwell is a treasure trove of fresh, distinctly Filipino ideas you can wear, carry, spruce up your home or gift people you love with.
What Puss in Boots told me about writing
Writing is is a love affair, and reading is its intimate encounters. It’s those quiet moments you spend with the one you love, during which you are given the opportunities you need to learn more, live more, hurt more, bleed more...
Roger Vivier waltzes into Manila in mind-bendingly thin heels
The rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré-inspired boutique is the new kid on the block of namedroppable stores at Greenbelt 3.
Sa Pa is made for walking
This idyllic town nestled in the ‘Vietnamese Alps’ has until lately been beyond reach, except to the most intrepid of travelers.
Like Shakespeare, I’m onion-eyed
And I’m hungering for the sautéed onion in my breakfast omelette or the rings of medium red onion in my pork chop steak a la bistek
Chiz and Heart: We're Back
At the birthday dinner she threw for her closest friends at Blackbird, Heart Evangelista looked dazzling in the arm of lost-and-found escort—Senator Chiz Escudero
Haiku adrift on plastic
How is the ocean not enraged,
swelling—
how is it not furious with grief:
we have drowned it in plastic,
its waves are no longer its own.
—Ashley Asti
Slurping my vichyssoise with Capote’s women
The Very Extra Book Club starts the year with generous helpings of the scandals that broke this author and his New York swans apart.
Higher and higher on butterfly wings
Cheers to the best of this year’s Ternocon—grand winner Yssa Inumerable and runners-up Gabbie Sarenas and Gladys Rose Pantua.
Battle of the batchoy
In the spirit of Dinagyang, that happened over the weekend, here’s a reprise of something I wrote a while back on Iloilo’s signature dish.
Hala bira!
SM Group throws massive support behind Dinagyang, the mother of Philippine festivals.
Batchoy conversation with Karen Davila
It’s such an experience to walk into the innards of the market, through an alley lined by stalls of pungent, piquant merchandise, such as guinamos, dried squid, dilis, daing, kalkag, salted labahita, fish tapa, and fish tocino.
It takes a very long time to be young
Youth is a dream, a form of chemical madness. —F. Scott Fitzgerald
In bed with words
Make room for good writing even when the times make bad sentences seem good enough.