Light of our lives
There can never be enough of giving mothers recognition and their due. In the case of the ABS publication Working Mom, the recognition is doubled because the vision of the magazine has always been to spotlight those mothers who are also successful in their chosen careers, juggling both quality family life and a professional endeavor. This year’s Balance Awards had five Editorial Picks, and two “Wonder Mom’s Readers Choice.” On top of these, co-presenter Meralco also chose two of the awardees as their Ilaw Ng Tahanan honorees. With host Karen Davila on hand (with young son in tow), the night was really one of blissful family bonding and mutual appreciation.
We often have events that showcase glamour, edginess, beauty, a rarefied lifestyle and/or conspicuous consumption; here, finally, was an event that came straight from the heart and exalted family, while also extolling achievement. In the Corporate category, the Balance award went to Pinky Yee of Goldilocks, while the Entrepreneur honors was notched by Dr. Rosalinda Hortaleza of Splash Corp. For Health and Well-Being, the indefatigable efforts of Kara Magsanoc-Alikpala as chairperson of the breast cancer awareness support group I Can Serve had her trooping to the stage, while Sen. Pia Cayetano took the award for Public Service. In Education, lawyer Gaby Concepcion and her crusade to make the law accessible and comprehensible to the common “tao” was duly recognized. The Wonder Mom’s Reader’s Choice awards went to Kaye Tinga (wife of Taguig Mayor Freddie Tinga) for Community Service, and to Natividad Cadiz for Triumph Over Tragedy — an Infanta, Quezon schoolteacher, she chose to stay with her students during a flash flood and made sure each student was safe until the storm abated. The touching part about the Reader’s Choices was that the letters submitted were sent by the daughters of the recipients. The Ilaw ng Tahanan awards went to Kara Alikpala and Dr. Rosalinda Hortaleza.
Mike Lopez of Meralco, along with the representatives of sponsors Alaska Corp., Whirlpool and Ponstan, were all in agreement that this was one of the most enjoyable and meaningful events they had attended this year. Christian Bautista and the Mandaluyong Children’s Choir provided the entertainment, but in the end, the stars were the mothers themselves, and it was the warm feeling that the night had created that gave everyone a special glow as they left the Blue Leaf Pavilion. No flash, no glitz, but the knowledge that we had been charmed and beguiled with stories of mothers and children, and how love happens, again and again.
The past bites
Common to these three novels is the element of how things in the past can rear its ugly head and influence matters, impinge on the things we do or believe in. Whether it’s family history, failed relationships, or a crime committed and already paid for, when the past “bites,” payback of some kind isn’t very far behind.
The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff (available at National Bookstore): Willie Cooper is an archaeology grad student who finds herself in a disastrous affair with her professor, while on a dig in Alaska. After trying to run over the professor’s wife with a plane, she returns to her upstate New York hometown of Templeton, with her proverbial tail between her legs, quite certain she’s pregnant. Her free-spirited mother Vi, descendant of the fabled Templeton family that founded the town, drops a bombshell of a family fact, that her father was not some hippie her mother met in San Francisco, but is somebody who lives in town but doesn’t know he’s Willie’s father. Think Water Music of TC Boyle, and what follows is a fascinating “trip” into Willie’s family past, with voices of her ancestors lending texture to this sojourn. Add a prehistoric monster that’s found in the lake, and this is one treat of a novel that deals with family and identity.
Based on the Movie by Billy Taylor (available at National Bookstore): Beyond understanding (finally!) what a Dolly Grip is, this novel of Billy Taylor is an unflinching and intimate look at the world of movie-making as seen from the perspective of the unsung crew. Bobby is a dolly grip and his wife, Natalie, is an independent producer who has left him for Elias — a hopeful novice film director. As Bobby cynically remarks, Elias’ claim to fame is that “he’s a distant Kennedy nephew, flunked Harvard, can’t sing, paint or sail, so he became a film director.” Populated by the “small” people of the film industry, the milieu is characterized by camaraderie, manipulation, petty jealousies and backbiting, and a constant need to expect the unexpected and cope. There’s humor aplenty in the situations and characters that Taylor dreams up for his story. And “dreams up” may be a misnomer, as I suspect the names have just been changed!
An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England by Brock Clarke (available at National Bookstore): This is one crazy, madcap plotline. Sam Pulsifer is a 30-something with a wife, Anne Marie, and two kids. They don’t know that he spent 10 years in prison for burning down the house of Emily Dickinson and accidentally killing a couple who he didn’t know were in the house at the time. Sam’s own dysfunctional parents had refused to accept him when he completed his sentence, and from out of the blue, the son of the dead couple shows up and insinuates himself into Sam’s family. As if things couldn’t get worse, Sam gets letters from all over the country, weird letters that suggest he now burn down this or that writer’s home. When these homes do burn down, Sam knows he’ll be the primary suspect and conducts his own search for the real arsonist. With black humor and buttered with irony, Clarke’s novel entertains.
