Dancing in the Moonlight

Last month, liwaliw Sounds featured songs from the Year-end Billboard Hot 100 of my birth year, and I only got as far as the 31st in rank (i.e. "Shambala" by Three Dog Night). Still a long way to the 100th in rank, so I decided to continue the selection this month.

So, the 36th from the list is "Dancing in the Moonlight" by King Harvest, released as a single in 1972 (ranked in the Hot 100 that year and the next).

Dancing in the moonlight
Everybody's feeling warm and bright
It's such a fine and natural sight
Everybody's dancing in the moonlight

I heard the revival cover first, by Toploader, released first in 2000. I had it downloaded on Limewire. (remember that?) I had a housemate then who got so obsessed with this version that he played my Limewire download back as much as he could.

Boxed in tearful

Memory Served: Sometime in 1979, Makati City

Memories of childhood have become sketchier. Not sure if I was with my father, or my mother, or them both, but I saw The Champ, starring Jon Voight, Faye Dunaway and Ricky Schroeder in cinema (most probably at Quad, now part of Glorietta, Ayala Center, Makati City). This movie was what I remembered and associated the first time I learned the word "tearjerker." Not a single eye in the moviehouse left dry - I cried too, and I was only six then.

Last month, I facilitated a meeting with government hospitals that were helping Filipino professional boxers with their medical, diagnostic and neurological requirements. Alvin Lagumbay, who just won his welterweight title in Tokyo this year even came to personally thank the hospitals. At one lighter, more casual moment in the meeting, I was able to take some of the attendees down memory lane with memories of The Champ.

It spoke of the mutual devotion between father and son. So, Happy Fathers Day to you all.

Etta's courage

Memory Served: 14 June 2016, Pasay City

"I was blindfolded, she said, but I will never forget your voice," quoted by Carla Montemayor as part of her narration to describe Etta Rosales' brand of courage; shared by friend Gus Cerdena on Facebook. Worth committing this to memory.

"When Etta Rosales was a new member of Congress, she came face to face with one of her torturers during the Marcos era: Col. Rodolfo Aguinaldo, by then also a member of Congress. She introduced herself and reminded him of the circumstances under which they first "met". 

When I first heard Etta relate this incident, I was stunned. You did what?! Why? And how did he respond? 

He denied having encountered her previously. Of course. That's what cowards do. He could not face the truth of his savagery. But Etta insisted calmly: I was blindfolded, she said, but I will never forget your voice. 

This is the kind of courage that Etta possesses. Here is someone who was brutalised but not broken, who is not vengeful but insists on confronting the past and pursuing justice. That she objects to Ferdinand Marcos's burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani is consistent with her experience and her principles. There can be civility, due process -- even forgiveness -- when dealing with our painful past but we must see it as it is, remember and seek justice."

Rosales is one of several Filipino women that I admire the most. A party-list representative and former chairperson of the Commission on Human Rights, Rosales was the first to champion a national measure to protect rights of Filipino LGBTs.

Marriage

Spotted: "Plum Leaves" from Flickr, after Pinterest search, 13 June 2018

"Marriage" is by Andrew Wyeth, an American realist painter. As in many images of art online, this work's ownership and location were hard to find. The information I needed didn't even come up in the article that featured George and Helen Sipala, the sleeping couple portrayed in the painting.

So Marriage is likely in private collection, unlike "Christina's World," Wyeth's most popular, and a masterpiece of magic realism, which is in the Museum of Modern Art. Christina's World is already an iconic American image: the Olson house in Cushing, Maine, as depicted, is now preserved at the Farnsworth Art Museum; the property, Olsen farm, became a National Historic Landmark on June 2011.

The month of June is traditionally the bride's, liwaliw Visuals will be on the look-out for notable bridal, marriage or wedding images.

My VP, My #LODI

#LODI #LeniIsMyVP pic.twitter.com/6yGv2EQqQl

— glenncruz (@glenncruz) June 12, 2018

Dateline: 12 June 2018, Pasay City

With the rains pouring consistently since last weekend, I decided to cancel my Independence Day observance for liwaliw. The nearest I came to being in the spirit of the national holiday was reading the papers while having brunch - I saw a full-page display ad containing a message that PDiggy signed but most definitely didn't write. (I doubt if he had a smidgen of his thoughts represented there, and I stopped reading after the first paragraph for feeling very sure of its inauthenticity.)

Oh, and stocking up for the night and the next coming rainy days, I saw a signage inside SM Supermarket that claimed that the turon (saging na saba with langka) is the national meryenda. That's the extent of my frail token nationalism.

And I should feel ashamed. Very early today, here was the country's Vice President, despite the rains, true to her ceremonial commitments at the Rizal Monument in Rizal Park (Luneta), Manila. (Saw tweets, too, that claimed main man PDiggy woke up late - again - and arrived late for his address at the Aguinaldo Shrine, Kawit, Cavite.)