Circle

Is there a place for the campus press in the coming May elections?

Their contributions can be many, school reporters were told, particularly in the larger context of the youth actively monitoring the process and outcome of the country’s first-ever automated national elections.

Such was the top agenda in this year’s Inkblots, the annual UST-organized gathering of campus reporters from across the country last October 21 to 23.

Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal, President Macapagal-Arroyo’s latest appointee to the Commission on Elections, said the 2010 polls were “for and owned by the youth.”

He told fellows not only to help spread information, but also to lessen the confusion that could attend the elections.

Larrazabal dispelled fears that one had to be computer-literate to participate in the automated elections. He did so via a demonstration using a virtual machine flashed in a PowerPoint presentation.

PROVING that music is a universal language, Korean conductor Jae-joon Lee conducted the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra as part of the latter’s concert series, Tour de Force Perfomances with 8 Maestros, last November 12, at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. Also performing with the Philippine orchestra was Korean bel canto singer Yun-kyoung Yi and the University’s very own Noel Azcona, assistant music director of the UST Singers, and Randy Gilongo, a professor at the Conservatory of Music Voice Department.

Lee also conducts voice claases at the Conservatory of Music where he is a visiting professor.

Lee learned of the Pontifical University through Professor Fidel Calalang, conductor of the UST Singers.

“[Calalang] is one of my best friends,” Lee said. “I tried to invite the UST Singers, I think five years ago, to perform in my country.”

HOW DOES one of the most iconic American plays fare in the Filipino tongue? It doesn’t work, apparently.

Showing the might of women in their Tagalog adaptation of the Pulitzer prize-winning play A Streetcar Named Desire proved to be no sweat for Tanghalang Pilipino, although the production still lacked some sparks.

Written by Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire depicts the clash between the worlds of fantasy and reality as personified by the conflict between the weak-nerved Belle Blanche DuBois, and her macho brother-in-law, Stanley Kowalski. The conflict erupts after a penniless Blanche moved in with her sister, Stella, in New Orleans after their ancestral plantation was taken away from her.

EVEN WITH his big-budgeted visual effects, Roland Emmerich cannot manage to save his disaster film from disaster.

A seasoned director of the sci-fi-cum-disaster genre with his films Independence Day, Godzilla, and The Day After Tomorrow, director Emmerich has self-styled the alleged December 21, 2012 Mayan doomsday prophecy into something that involves obliterating landmarks and razing the three states he loves to destroy in previous films, namely New York City, Los Angeles, and Washington.

But in this era of visual effects and high-definition pictures, disaster films are a dime-a-dozen, following a formula passed from one catastrophic picture down to another. Emmerich suffers the most in this case by stuffing into the script certain elements of the disaster genre that we have all seen before.

WHO KNOWS the secret of dying? According to Dan Brown, the Freemasons do, but they’re not exactly willing to share it.

The popular writer follows up his 2003 best seller The Da Vinci Code with another puzzle for protagonist Robert Langdon to break. This time, the Harvard symbologist’s quest takes him all over Washington D.C., in a race against time to keep yet another grave revelation from being exposed to the world.

In The Lost Symbol, Langdon is summoned to give a lecture at the Capitol building by his teacher, Peter Solomon, a well-known Mason. However, before Langdon meets up with his friend and mentor, a severed hand in the Capitol Rotunda—Peter Solomon’s—points him to his latest adventure. The lecture is a hoax, and the hand is a clue to solving the crime.

FOR SOME, it might take hours of extensive narration to describe what life in the country was like before the arrival of modern technology and its revolutionary impact to the society. But by looking at the paintings of Thomasian Noli Vicedo, it would only take minutes.

In his second one-man exhibit titled Salakot at Sumbalilo last November 14 at The Podium, Vicedo gives his audience a feel of the old rural life with his paintings depicting Filipino townsfolk going about with their daily business.

The particular theme is inspired by the painter’s childhood years in Alfonso, Cavite during the 1960s, when he farmed with his grandparents. The exhibit was made with the intention of preserving these memories.

The “Koreanovelas,” as soap opera from South Korea are known in the Philippines, seem to have gained a spot in the Filipinos’ hearts (and local primetime TV), with quirky and addictive shows like Endless Love, Full House, My Girl and Princess Hours. In fact, these foreign hits have become so popular that television stations are banking on remakes of Only You and Stairway to Heaven to be their current meal tickets. But can the features that define these drama series survive in the Filipino setting?

ONLY YOU: Kitchen drama

The original series was first shown in the Philippines through ABS-CBN and it quickly gained a following.

SENIORS from the College of Tourism and Hospitality Management paid homage to two of man’s most loved delights — coffee and ice cream.

Held last September 16 at the Palasyo de Maynila in Roxas Boulevard, Fahrenheit: Degrees of Euphoric Temptations featured entrepreneurs who made it big in the local coffee and ice cream industries such as Pacita Juan of the Philippine Coffee Board and Gilbert Jose of Creamline Ice Cream. They tackled everything about coffee and ice cream, from the food’s history to possible business opportunities here and abroad.

Quite fittingly, the image used for the event was fire and ice, which symbolized the two contrasting temperatures of coffee and ice cream.

Aside from a free-tasting of different kinds of coffee and ice cream and a demo on how to make ice cream with liquid nitrogen (by Chef Johann Santos of Zenses Neo-Shanghai Cuisine), another highlight of the event was a photo exhibit by UST students.

Care for an encore of High School Musical?

Teen-oriented television station JackTV recently held an event at the RCBC Plaza last September 10 to officially kick-off their newest prime time series, Glee.

The show, which airs every Monday at 8 p.m., tackles high school life and the struggles one faces in finding a group to fit in. Unlike High School Musical, Glee appeals to viewers with its realistic situations and focus on character development.

The story revolves around a teacher who tries to relive his glory days in high school by reforming the defunct glee club, which currently is a cesspool for losers. In an effort to boost the club’s image and membership, the teacher blackmails a football jock with a beautiful singing voice into joining the club. Along the way, the club faces several challenges which test each member’s resolve to survive the harsh environment of high school.

THE CAMPUS was abuzz over Bola ni Totoy, the latest play-cum-variety show by Mediartrix, staged at the Albertus Magnus Auditorium last September 22 and 23. But did the show deliver?

Directed by Khristofferson Yusi and Gladys Pagdato, and written by Cherry Mae Poblete, Bola tackled the consequences of bad decision-making by blunder-prone college guy Amber.

In the story, he finds a talking Magic 8 Ball which can make all the hard choices for him. In time, his dependence on the ball leads him to Alexa, his would-be college sweetheart, but this comes not without consequences. Ambert will discover the dark side of letting others choose for him.

The play’s saving grace was probably its humor, partly due to the odd characters, from the ostentatiously obese socialite Fatty, to Pillow, a closet homosexual flirting with his male buddies.