This Ma Arte finds a new home
The MaArte Fair, organized by the Museum Foundation of the Philippines, enjoys the distinction of being one of the better run events that highlight local craftsmen and artisanal products. For years now, it was held at Rockwell, and would always be a happy co-mingling of budding entrepreneurs, artists and enthusiastic patrons and supporters of the cause and concept. It’s a project that directly benefits our National Museum, while championing Filipino quality products; and this year’s edition will be held at the Gallery of The Peninsula Manila, happening on Aug. 11 to 13. It’s a new home for MaArte, and both the Foundation and the Peninsula are excited to make this a weekend of delightful discovery.
During an engaging afternoon preview, I managed to sample — and taste — some of the little treasures that will be unveiled this August. Being allergic to coffee has made me a loyal tea drinker and I have often bemoaned the fact that no exciting tea blend has originated from our country. Well, that’s one pipe wish I can now strike off the list. Sagada Tips is Tsaa Laya’s special blend and it carries a distinct aroma that suggests its origin. As the cup of tea was brought to me, I could already smell and imagine the earthy, mountaintop view and the crisp early morning air of the Mountain Province.
Oscar Mejia’s Artisan Fragrances will be at this year’s MaArte so don’t miss the opportunity as Oscar’s distinctive, diverse and even customized (if needed) fragrances are regularly available only online. The Himbing Room Spray is a relaxing melange of lavender, green apple and green tea. While his reinvigorating Sigla is orange, bergamot (orange peel) and olive. During the preview, we were gifted with a linen and room spray that was especially formulated for MaArte — the light, refreshing, floral Kalinaw. As Oscar excitedly disclosed, there are plans for him to collaborate with the Tsaa Laya group and create fragrances that incorporate our very Filipino tea blends!
Apparel, pieces for the house, semi-precious jewelry are just some of the merchandise we’ll find at the MaArte Fair. And old dependable such as Filip+Inna, Balay ni Atong, Antukin, Aranaz, Tweetie de Leon-Gonzalez, Mich Araullo, et al. will be among the exhibitors. With MaArte, it’s always a celebration of things Filipino that speak in a unique manner.
New fiction
Here are three novels written by authors who are fairly new to the “game.” Emmich gifts us with a wonderful touching story about memory, while Irby’s is one tricky affair, like walking on quicksand. Lepucki is a modern version of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.
The Reminders by Val Emmich (available at Fully Booked) Emmich’s novel plays a wonderful balancing act between humorous and wry on one hand, and sentimental and touching on the other. The recent death of Sydney has left his life partner, Gavin, unhinged. A Hollywood actor in a TV series, Gavin gets caught in the news for starting a bonfire of Syd’s belongings in their backyard that gets out of control. Fleeing to New Jersey, he stays with a couple who introduced Gavin to Sydney. There, he meets their 10-year-old, Joan Lennon Sully, who has the rare condition of HSAM (highly superior autobiographical memory). Her vivid details of Sydney’s visits become a cathartic journey for Gavin, and he in turn, has to help Joan with her joining a songwriting contest. It’s hope and despair in a palpable, so-real story, and a wonderful read!
Unreliable by Lee Irby (available at Fully Booked) If you’re looking for a novel that takes the concept of “the unreliable narrator” to the extreme, here is the book for you. Eddie is a failed novelist and professor at an upstate New York Ithaca college, and he flies back home to Richmond for his mother’s second wedding to a man years younger than her. It’s a picaresque with Eddie as our guide but it’s also one that has truth as an elusive entity. Eddie may or may not have murdered his ex-wife and new stepsister, may or may not be having an affair with a co-ed, may or may not suffer from erectile dysfunction, and may or may not be carrying on in Richmond with an old flame. In the meantime, reading this novel is a hoot, as it consists of the observations and comments of one certifiable sociopath. Dark and ambiguous, yet full of truth.
Woman No. 17 by Edan Lepucki (available at Fully Booked) A tale set in LA about two dysfunctional families that intersect via Lady and S. Lady is the mistress of her house, with two children coming from different fathers. The elder boy is Seth, who has not spoken his whole life, but is physically capable of doing so — selective mutism; while Devin is a toddler. S is short for Esther, and she arrives applying to be the “sitter” but finds ways to inveigle her way into the lives of both Lady and Seth that carry serious consequences. It’s a narrative that constructed as alternating chapters from Lady’s and S’s perspectives and we thus become the proverbial fly on the wall, gifted with a first-row seat to the downward spirals the lives of our two female leads take. It’s a journey ripe with psychological insight about family, distress and forms of redemption.