Cristy in the City

The dry season (Pagasa weather bureau does not refer to it as summer) is particularly blistering this year with El Nino phenomenon rearing its ugly head. With heat indices in Iloilo reaching 44C, it’s definitely a brutal season for many especially for heat intolerant folks like myself. Everybody dreads the humidity and the heat that triggers all sorts of bodily ailments and irritable situations. How do breeze through this season without losing our sanity?

1. Take a cool shower twice or thrice a day if it is possible. This is the fastest way to keep our system cool and free from overheating. Try products like Human Nature cooling body cleansers for a refreshing twist.

2. Slather on the sunscreen and wear a hat!

3. Keep hydrated! On particularly hot days, drinking electrolyte added water like Pocari Sweat helps replace lost salts and minerals due to excessive sweating.

4. Treat yourself to your favorite cold drinks like iced coffee, juices and slushes.

Cheap but yummy popsicle treat from Aice Ice Cream

The best strawberry bingsu in town is from Cafe Seoul. Available on Grab Food.

They say Filipinos drink hot coffee even on hot days. Not in this crazy weather. Affogato is the best alternative if you are craving caffeine. CPlex Cafe near Jaro Plaza serves amazing affogato.

5. Activities that require strenuous effort such as exercise should be done early morning or late evening. Haha, avoid all strenuous activities altogether. It's a season to be laaazzzzy!

6. Invest in a portable misting handheld fan to stay cool wherever you are. Cooling blankets, mats and products such as Biore cooling mists and body sheets are especially helpful.

7. Install windchimes such as Japanese furin in your garden or balcony to enjoy the cooling, gentle ringing sounds. Bamboo chimes have a cooling effect as well.

8. Wear light colored, comfortable clothing made of cotton fabric. Of course, the dry season is a reason to wear flip flops, yay!

9. Flowers are abloom so safely enjoy outdoor picnics under a cool shady tree. Be mindful of staying outdoors when UV level and heat indices are high. There is no reason to be miserable this season. Warmer weather can have its perks!

10. Budget permitting, the best way to escape the dry season for urban dwellers is to hie off to cooler destinations like mountain retreats (and the malls if you don’t have aircon at home).

In the meantime, enjoy the dry season. Stay cool!

Not really a Swiftie but a Sheerio ;)

All roads led to Ed Sheeran’s Mathematics Tour 2024 at SMDC Festival Grounds last Saturday, March 9, 2024. I missed his Manila concert back in 2018 and this year, I didn’t want to miss it for the world. So without a blink of an eye, I jumped on the earliest available Air Asia flight last Saturday to catch the concert in the evening. My sister treated me to CAT3 reserved seat tickets at the open air venue so I was super thrilled and grateful to see Ed Sheeran a little bit closer than I imagined. Our vantage point allowed us to fully appreciate the monumental stage set-up, a circular LED screen held up by laser sourced Ayrton lighting rigs and a fully automated, TAIT navigated revolving stage that gave the audience a full unobstructed view of the beloved British singer-songwriter. The immersive light and sound technology employed in this concert definitely blurred the lines between live performance and digital art wizardry. Mathematics Tour 2024 is all that it adds up to be and more.

Crowd favorite local indie folk pop band Ben & Ben was the front act for the evening. Bloody excellent choice, Ed! I was doubly stoked as Ben & Ben is my fave local artist and I've always wanted to see and hear them play live. I am a fan of their music genre and it was refreshing to hear the 9-piece band play their popular songs like Leaves, Kathang Isip, etc to an adoring crowd. The highlight of the evening would have to be Ed Sheeran sharing the stage with the B&B twin brothers Miguel Benjamin and Paolo Benjamin Guico (hence Ben & Ben) for a duet of their hit song Maybe the Night. Ed singing the lyrics of Maybe the Night gave us all the warm fuzzies!

Ed Sheeran opened the show with fireworks and an electrifying rendition of Tides, the first song in his 28 song setlist that ended with an equally charged song Bad Habits. A curtain of fireworks closed the stage, a fitting culmination to an unforgettable night. Almost all of my favorite songs were in the setlist- The A Team, Lego House, Shape of You, Galway Girl, Castle on the Hill and Afterglow so I was one happy Sheerio. Perfect is one song I often play on my guitar so I felt really surreal when Ed Sheeran sang it to a gently swaying crowd, their mobile phones lighting up the night like a swarm of fireflies. At the start of the show, Ed assured the audience that everything in the concert is performed live. He emphasized that no single concert of his sounds exactly the same. With guitar in hand and his signature loop pedal, Sheeran was a one-man rock band, his every move amplified and transformed into mesmerizing, almost hypnotic thematic MTV style LED board videos. I've been to many rock concerts (in my youth, hehe) and I can say Sheeran's rotating stage platform is a breakthrough in audience engagement. In whatever seat tier you are, you are given the equal opportunity to see the performer in 360 degree glory.

My favorite part of the concert aside from Ed’s duet with Ben & Ben is his heart stirring rendition of Tenerife Sea, a song which I particularly adore and that never fails to give me goosebumps. The excited crowd fell into a hushed spell when he reached the bridge of the song and softly crooned "Lumiere darling, lumiere over me, lumiere darling, lumiere over me." Ah, my heart slayed by this ginger-haired Brit.

Ed's set started at 8:15 pm and ended at 10:40 pm. Another front-act was Calum Scott, a fellow Brit and alumnus of Britain's Got Talent. We missed his performance since we got entangled in the Pasay City traffic jam (I meant it literally when I said all roads led to SMDC). As expected going home after the concert is another story in itself. Despite the challenging post-concert traffic situation, Pinoy Sheerios went home happy, bathed in a warm concert afterglow.

The cool breeze and pleasant weather (so untypical of summer nights) made the concert more enjoyable and memorable. In the night sky, the new moon shone, the lumiere that Ed Sheeran's music makes us feel.

We can't wait for Ed to come back! Don't make us wait for another 6 years, please!

“We love films because they makes us feel something. They speak to our desires, which are never small. They allow us to escape and to dream and to gaze into the eyes that are impossibly beautiful and huge. They fill us with longing. But also. They tell us to remember; they remind us of life. Remember, they say, how much it hurts to have your heart broken. -

”Nina LaCour, Everything Leads to You

I’ve always been a movie buff since my college days in UP Diliman. Most of my vacant time was spent watching free or twenty peso movies at the UP Film Center which was just a 10-minute walk from my dormitory. I had a penchant for obscure, subtitled foreign movies, experimental or cult classics. Given my choice of movies, I would always find the theater either empty or find two or three lonely souls strategically dispersed in the 800- seater movie theater.

I knew that despite the communal nature of cinema, we still tend to view movies as a highly personal, guarded experience hence we draw an invisible line between ourselves and other movie goers. Yet, the vicarious emotions that cinema allow us to feel are all too well universal. So we laugh, cry or feel intense bursts of rage and ecstasy while a visual narrative plays before our eyes. Whether it’s pathos, pain, pleasure, or parody we share in the same thematic unfolding brought about by the human condition. I enjoy watching movies on streaming media but there’s still nothing like cinema to bring our splintered, emotional selves together.

My Film 100 (Intro to Film) elective class under Prof. Rolando Tolentino also deepened my love for film analysis which has its roots in literary criticism. I remember the agony of having to sit through Citizen Kane, Gone with the Wind and other notoriously long movies with nary an eye blink or a bathroom break with the fear of missing a critical subtext. Film 100 introduced me to starter kit movies that encompassed all cinematic genres and subgenres.

On the homefront, one of the pleasures that an Ilonggo cineaste can enjoy is an occasional, free Sunday movie at the 77-seater UPV Cinematheque-Cinema Exmundo at the UP in the Visayas Iloilo campus. A fellow cinephile friend who particulatly loves bygone Hollywood films always send me invites. Schedule permitting, I would trade a Sunday afternoon otherwise devoted to bottomless laundry or ironing to a few hours at UPV Cinematheque to screen a classic film noir I haven’t seen before. Compared to a commercial movie house, the crimson walled cinematheque has a ceiling with tiny strobing lights reminscent of a constellation filled summer night sky and vintage lacquered chairs upcycled from the now defunct Allegro Theater. Of course, the heavy red velvet drapes add an authentic vintage ambiance to the cinematic experience. In the theater, I sit quietly like an old soul in the company of senior citizens who long for bygone love, life and romance like a sweet rewind to the ardent days of youth. Only cinema can transport you to another time, another place.

Just this Sunday, I got invited to attend a cinema themed 100th posthumous birthday celebration of my friend’s father, a war veteran who loved the movie Fiddler on the Roof when he was still alive. Sunrise, Sunset taken from the soundtrack of the said movie along with You are my Sunshine were two of his favorite songs and the guests fittingly sung them at the end of the screening. The family also prepared a special snack box for the guests filled with nostalgic treats with home baked cookies and chips. It was my first time to witness a posthumous birthday celebration done in very memorable, heartwarming way. To celebrate the 100th birthday of a dearly departed loved one with his favorite movie and songs while trading memories and reminiscing good times is probably the best way to celebrate a life well lived.