Filipino author nominated in Sweden award - Reprint

Filipino author nominated in Sweden award

Adarna Publishing House also in the running

By Veronica Uy
INQUIRER.net
First Posted 16:38:00 03/12/2009

Filipino children literature author Albert Gamos and Adarna House have been nominated in Sweden’s prestigious Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, the world’s largest prize for children and young adult literature.

According to the consulate general of Sweden here, the award administered by the Swedish Arts Council gives away every year five million krona (about Є480,000) to authors, illustrators, storytellers, and promoters of reading.

The prize aims to increase and strengthen interest in children and young adult literature worldwide. The winner will be announced on March 24.

Gamos is an illustrator of the "The Best of Lola Basyang" by Severino Reyes, which bagged the Gintong Aklat Award for Children's Literature and won the National Book Award for Best Anthology. He has received various international awards for his work.

Adarna House meanwhile has been nominated for its literacy project, Bright Minds Read (BMR), which it launched in 2003 together with the Ronald McDonald House of Charities and the Philippine Department of Education.

Adarna’s literacy project was a response to a study conducted among public school students showing that after completing first grade, 40 percent of students were still nonreaders.

Together with top educators from the University of the Philippines, 32 picture books were published and a campaign to teach teachers how to use BMR materials was done.

In the first year, the ratio of Grade 1 nonreaders dramatically dropped from 40 percent to four percent.

To date, BMR has covered 2,000 schools.

“By 2009 the pilot students will be graduating from grade school with not only a love of learning but with a passion for reading,” the consulate said.

Adarna House has also partnered with Reach Out and Read-Philippines (ROR-P) to promote early literacy and a love for books.

The first bilingual (Filipino-English) board books will be provided to pediatric patients below two years old.

Last October 22, Adarna House and ROR-P opened the Adarna House Reading Corner in the activity center of Philippine Children’s Medical Center. The Philippines is one of the first few countries outside of the United States that has implemented ROR.

Previous recipients of the prize have been candidates from the United States, Austria, Brazil, Japan, Venezuela, and Australia, among others.

Unique portrait from Shakespeare's life unveiled - Reprint

LONDON, England (CNN) -- A portrait painted 400 years ago and kept anonymously in an Irish home for much of the time since is now believed to be the only painting of William Shakespeare created during his lifetime.

The portrait of William Shakespeare is thought to be the "only" portrait painted during his lifetime.

The image reveals a wealthy Shakespeare of high social status, contradicting the popular view of a struggling playwright of humble status, according to Stanley Wells, a professor who chairs London's Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

Wells, a distinguished Shakespeare scholar, arranged for three years of research and scientific testing which confirmed it was painted around 1610, when Shakespeare would have been 46 years old.

"A rather young looking 46, it has to be said," Wells said. Shakespeare died in 1616.

The Cobbe portrait -- named after the Irish family that owns the painting -- shows Shakespeare with rosy cheeks, a full head of hair, and a reddish brown beard.

The most common portrait of Shakespeare is a gray image showing a bald Bard with a small mustache and beard, and bags under his eyes.

The identity of the man in the portrait was lost over the centuries -- until Alec Cobbe saw a portrait from Washington's Folger Shakespeare Library. That painting, which fell into disfavor as a Shakespeare portrait about 70 years ago, turned out to be one of four copies of Cobbe's portrait.

The portrait "shows a man wearing expensive costuming, including a very beautifully painted ruff of Italian lacework which would have been very expensive," Wells said.

"It establishes, for me, that Shakespeare in his later years was a rather wealthy, a rather well affluent member of aristocratic circles in the society of his time," Wells said.

"There's been too much of a tendency to believe that Shakespeare, being the son of a glover, coming for a small town in the middle of England, that he necessarily retained a rather humble status throughout his life."

Wells reads even more into what he sees in Shakespeare's newly-found face.

"I think it's plausible as a portrait as a good listener, of somebody who would have been capable of writing the plays, clearly the face of a man of high intelligence," he said.

"It's the face of a man, I think, who betrays a good deal of wisdom in his features. But, of course, as somebody (King Duncan) says in Shakespeare's story Macbeth, 'there's no art to find the mind's construction in the face.'"

It should be noted that Shakespeare's King Duncan paid a price for judging Macbeth to have the face of an honorable man. Macbeth later murdered the king.

The public can read Shakespeare's face from the original painting at Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford-upon-Avon where it goes on display for several months starting April 23.

The portrait then returns to the Cobbe family, which inherited it when an ancestor married England's Earl of Southampton -- a friend of Shakespeare who likely commissioned its painting.

Plurk Fiesta at Generals Brew

Generals Brew or Gen Brew is a homegrown cafe that offers a wide variety of heady brews such as hot coffee, cold coffee, tea, smoothies, sandwiches on whole wheat bread sprinkled with sesame seeds, affordable meals with generous servings.
Open 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., Gen Brew (still on soft opening) also offers wifi, packets of coffee beans, pastries, chillout music, live acoustic music (at night). Owners Quin & Leti Du are constantly coming up with innovative concoctions to add to Gen Brew's burgeoning menu.

Ham sandwich on whole wheat bread

A tall glass of blended iced tea

Gensan's blogger-Plurkers get the chance to know each other during a meet-up sponsored by Gen Brew

Photos courtesy of Leonard Pe

Just because it is, doesn't mean it should be

Running at 165 minutes, Australia by Baz Luhrmann at turns surprises, amuses, thrills, mystifies, and makes the viewer ponder about race, culture, love and family. As I've learned from watching Lurhmann's Moulin Rouge, expect the unexpected. And so with such visual artistry, Luhrmann's Australia is entertaining as it shifts from the comedic beginning (the barroom brawl and underwear suitcase fiasco) to the thrilling middle (driving 1500 heads of "fat cheeky bulls through Neverland and into that big bloody metal ship," love develops between Lady Ashley & Drover) up to the dramatic ending (WWII bombing, rescue of kids, reunion).

On the treatment of women, aborigines and half-castes, the film never pontificates. From the mouths of Lady Sarah Ashley and Drover, we hear their firm conviction that, Just because it is, doesn't mean it should be when confronted by discrimination.

The last time I gasped and held my breath as I saw the cinematographic artistry onscreen was while watching Barry Lyndon. Watching Australia made me gasped again after a long while. The panoramic shots of the outback and Faraway Downs, the dusty arid landcape, the nightsky just make me want to eat the scenery.

Women on Top

Plurking about who's excellent - men or women - brought a deluge of responses from our group. Of course, the result sparked this blogpost. Worth1000.com held a contest, If Women Ruled and the following Photoshopped creations were some of the entries:

President Michelle Obama and First Gentleman Obama

President Michelle Obama's Pink HouseThe Oscars, re-envisionedSheneken, pink beerSwiss Army knife for womenPink Superman, Hello Kitty Edition

Time Magazine edited by a woman

Can't you speak Engrish? Yes, I am!

Urbandictionary.com defines Engrish as a form of English characterized by bad translation from Japanese by someone who is decent at translating vocabulary but has a poor grasp of English grammar. Tends to be a word-by-word literal translation with humorous results for native English speakers. Engrish is most common in old video games and anime subtitles.

Engrish is by no means limited to video games and animes and Japan, it extends to almost everything in Asia, including the Philippines. As a result of word-by-word literal translations, the following Engrish examples culled from Engrish.com are hilarious and punny (though not intended):


And from the Philippines!

The Rest of the Story Rests in Peace - Paul Harvey, 90

One favorite author has died. Paul Harvey, whose voice I haven't heard (his stories were first broadcast by him over the radio) but whose books I have cherished and kept in a special section of my library, is dead at 90.His books are soooo easy to read with its bite-size stories reminiscent of O. Henry surprise endings. His books include Paul Harvey's The Rest of the Story, More of Paul Harvey's The Rest of the Story, Destiny and 102 Other Real Life Stories and Paul Harvey's For What's It's Worth.

An excerpt from his first book, Paul Harvey's The Rest of the Story:

The Mouse that Roared

Steve Morris was not a typical child. But when you're nine years old, the desire to be typical is very strong . . .

Of all the people and things Steve has since forgotten and remembered from those early years, one woman stands out in his mind. One woman encouraged him and gave him the courage to be extraordinary. Steve's elementary school teacher, Mrs. Beneduci . . . With the unwitting aid of a little gray mouse she seized instead upon a particular opportunity, and from that day on Steve knew his greatest pride, the calling of a life.

It happened in a tiny grade school classroom in Detroit, the rest of the story.

(Mrs. Beneduci asked the class who Abraham Lincoln was. Nobody answered except Steve who got the answer right. She continued lecturing about Lincoln but was interrupted by a sound.)

"I hear something like scratching . . . It's very faint . . . It sounds like a mouse!"

(The girls screamed and some stood on their chairs. The teacher tried to calm them. She asked Steve to help her find the mouse.)

Steve sat straight upright in his chair, brightening considerably. "OK." he said, "Now everybody be quiet!"

(Steve cocked his head and pointed to the wastebasket. Mrs. Beneduci found the little gray mouse.)

It was discovered by little Steve Morris, whom nature had given a remarkable pair of ears in compensation for having denied him eyes since birth.

So the class settled back to business. And the little gray mouse became a mascot. In the heart of small, unsighted Steve, a pride was born . . . and that pride is with him still.

(Mrs. Beneduci continued encouraging the talent that the whole world now knows and respects.)

In time, the marvelous ears of Steve Morris gave popular music something to be proud of . . . a singer-composer-musician-producer with 5 Grammys in '75 . . . 17 gold singles . . . 4 gold albums . . . 4 platinum records.

For once upon a time, a little gray mouse roared . . . gave a small boy confidence in what nature had given him. And Steve Morris, from the time he was ten . . . for his gifted ears . . . was never known as anything . . . but Little Stevie Wonder.