January’s been lovely in some ways, most especially weather-wise. And we had the luxury of the full moon in perigee on the 11th, the closest to earth it hovers, while Jupiter shines bright and distinct in the western sky, following up on uncommon planetary configurations over the past month.
We’ve donned “winter wear” and done away with air-con in our bedrooms, even electric fans. We enjoy balmy to chilly air and amihan breezes. Crisp sunshine attends our mornings.
Around the neighborhood, blooms are topped by fruit-laden branches of the makopa and kaimito, while mango trees initiate their own floral white clusters. On Concepcion-Lanuza and Julia Vargas Avenues, the center islands sport yellow-flowering acacia mangium trees and the lilac of bauhinia.
A triangle of Starbucks, McDonald’s and Jollibee outlets serves as a gateway for Frontera Verde Drive, better known to visitors as the Tiendesitas complex. Alongside Fun Ranch is Transcom Building, where call center operators, the jacketed hope of the fatherland, stream out for smoking breaks on the wrap-around embankment.
Tony Sevilla’s distinctive Hacienda restaurant offers comfort food entrees and turo-turo trays of regional staples inspired by Gilda Cordero Fernando’s books, at modest prices for full meals or pulutan. The sinful lamb adobo goes well with beer and whisky. Even the decor is patterned after old-hacienda visuals as provided in Gilda’s History of the Burgis.
Initially intimidated by the elegant ambience — inclusive of a vintage phonograph and a stack of vinyl records, the call center kids preferred to take out microwaved pap from a Ministop, or crossed over to Tiendesitas’ food court. But seeing families and senior citizens like us often filling up the capacious place, they too have availed themselves of fine budget meals: Four Kinds Adobo, sisig, laing, Bicol Express, sinaing na tulingan...
Hacienda also boasts of Tony’s other, growing business concern, his Philippine Mountain Coffee Collection. It features an array of brews, from strong (Kalinga) to medium (Tagaytay) to mild (Malaybalay), along with other packaged labels like Sagada and Kanlaon, ground or as beans. A stall operates at Tiendesitas. But it is on that wide, tiled embankment bordering Hacienda where “a cuppa java” is best enjoyed towards magic hour, with an expansive view of enclave proceedings while the sun and breezes are perfect equipoise.
Ah, January in Metro Manila!
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’Tis the season, too, when Yuletide balikbayans depart while others come in, those who didn’t want to compete for tight holiday tickets. Comings and goings mark our holiday calendar that started in December.
Fil-Am poet Sarah Gambito from New York, whose first book Matadora (Alice James Books) we reviewed quite positively in this space over a year ago, breezed in for research on a Fordham grant, by virtue of her directorship of its creative writing program. She treated us to a sumptuous dinner at Kusina ni Tia Muning’s across Malacañang, which is always an exquisite dining experience. Then it was another discussion on poetry over lunch at the similarly alluring Cafe Juanita at Bgy. Kapitolyo — that poster resto for delightful Pinoy horror vacui, with tasteful entrees to match.
Sarah also enjoyed joining a Happy Mondays poetry reading in Mag:net on Katips, reveling in homegrown poems as performed onstage, as well as the newfound company and camaraderie with her age group. A copy of her second poetry collection, Delivered (Persea Books), should be coming our way soon to make up for her departure last week.
The young jazz diva Mishka Adams also had a brief sojourn home, winging in with four friends from London, including sax player Andrew Woolf. They spent much of the holidays before the turn of the year on Panglao Island in Bohol. Tragically, that week featured a couple of incipient storms that kept the tropical sun as much of a rare find as above Big Ben.
The Candid Records star only managed a single gig, a jam session at Skarlet’s Ten-02 resto-bar and jazz haven off Timog Ave. That was two Tuesdays ago, when she shared the stage with local maestros Edgar “Koyang” Avenir on guitar and Mike “Pikong” Guevarra on sax, together with sculptor-mom Agnes Arellano, Skarlet a.k.a. Myra Ruaro, Mr. Woolf, and the diminutive but terrific baritone saxophonist Roxy Modesto.
Optical Media Board head honcho Edu Manzano and piano bar guru Reli German were among the enthralled guests, or so we heard, since we failed to be there. Alas, Mishka had to fly back to London last Thursday.
The last significant jazz gig we enjoyed was at Butch Perez’s ’Round Midnight party in North Syquia Apartments, Malate, on Dec. 6, with the superlative trio of Aya Yuson on guitar, Dave Harder on bass, and Cookie Chua on vocals and eye candy pedestal.
It was also the last time we’d see and hear Anabel Bosch, rock goddess and poet, whom the crowd clamored for and Cookie asked to jam in.
The standout young lady, veritably our niece since she’s the daughter of lifetime buddy Tony Bosch of Lemuria Circle in Pasay, had sung with Tropical Depression, Spy, Elektrikoolaid and Analog, among various bands. She also helped manage Oarhouse on A. Mabini in Malate. And of late she was busy writing songs, along with poems on motherhood and finding herself, which she read for the Romancing Venus serial nights in Mag:net.
Billed by admirers as a femme fatale, she was also known to be “a hands-on mother” to 12-year-old daughter Mischaela or Mishka. Anabel sang the blues, rock, reggae, punk and ska, once saying that “When I grow up, maybe I’ll sing jazz naman.”
On Jan. 1, Anabel suffered an aneurysm attack at home. She was rushed to Makati Med, where she fought on after an operation, helped along by countless friends who circled the wagons, prayed, and started fund-raising concerts. Doctors said she was likely to go when her condition dipped, but she held on until Jan. 11 of the full moon, when she expired and came closest to earth.
She was cremated on the same day, and her ashes are now surrounded by lit joss in the Bosch ancestral home, on an altar created by Agnes Arellano and Billy Bonnevie. Another altar was fashioned by Boy Yuchengco before he had to leave for Baguio. The wake continues nightly, while the music gigs in tribute to Anabel also go on for the rest of the month.
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It had been more than a decade since we last visited the Bosch compound on Protacio St., where Tony now runs an eight-room pension that also hosts a python. Handcarved narra and molave tables and desks, together with spectacular driftwood, are among the eclectic appointments. Tony’s late lamented brother Pepito Bosch, legendary counterculture sage and “Ermita outlaw” of Einsteinian dimensions, remains a habitué and impish presence — as a grinning death mask done by Agnes, now hanging on a central wooden post.
It felt good to be with family again, albeit it was less another gifted member. Mishka entertained her choir group and watched a video e-mailed by Anabel’s buddy Romina Diaz who is in Italy. Her mother Silvana, art gallery stalwart, looked over the kids’ shoulders as they hunched close to a laptop to appreciate Romina’s song dedicated to Anabel. The singer breaks up in tears at the end.
We heard of how on the eve of Anabel’s demise, Mishka had sung her mother’s composition, War, at Hobbit House. We drank rum, reminiscences and whisky with Tony and Anabel’s brother Dante, asked her sisters Marlies and Denise for sample text from their departed sibling. Here are the lyrics to Anabel Bosch’s composition titled “Home”:
“I want to leave the night behind/ I need to somehow find the clock that will give me the time/ To bring back all that once was mine// And bring me home/ Oh bring me home/ To the life that I once owned/ And bring me home// I have bled a hundred rivers red/ Paid my dues in and out of bed/ And all that mattered was put on hold/ But even I need shelter from this cold// And bring me home/ Oh bring me home/ To the life that I once owned/ And bring me home// Home is love/ Home is life/ No need to lease/ No need to hide/ It’s where my heart doesn’t pay the price/ And I don’t sell my soul to stay alive// I have stood strong when my legs would give/ And all I ask for is a chance to live/ Free and open, without the fear or flight/ I take it back now as it is my life// Oh bring me home/ And bring me home/ To the life that I once owned/ I’m coming home// I’m coming home now/ I’m coming home now/ I’m coming home now/ I’m coming home...”
Ginny Mata, who has been behind the Romancing Venus readings, furnished us with a poem Anabel wrote last May for Mishka, titled “Capture the Sun”:
“She holds out her arms/ and tries to capture the sun/ She waves to the clouds/ Waves them away, one by one/ She swims over a universe of starfish/ Pretending she’s crossing the galaxy/ She throws stones at the moon/ Through its reflection on the sea/ She won’t build castles in the sand/ The way I have, so foolishly/ She still plays her little-girl games/ I still call her by her little-girl name//...
“As I watch her gather her dreams before sleeping/ You’re so right, my darling, we are done with our weeping.// And one day, I shall capture the sun for you/ That you may never be touched by darkness again.”
Tribute gigs will be held at Big Sky Mind, Mag:net High Street, Saguijo, Checkpoint, Ten 02, Hobbit House, 19 East, Route 196, Conspiracy and Club Dredd, with live performances by The Dawn, Cambio, Chilitees, Tropical Depression, Sandwich, Pupil, Itchyworms, Sugarfree, Kjwan, Noel Cabangon, The Jerks, 6 Cycle Mind and other popular acts. Ginny says the gig schedule may be found on the Facebook tribute page (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=42910948527).
Anabel would have been 33 this Sunday, Jan. 25. We look forward to the live-on party at Lemuria Circle that night.