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My teacher and thesis adviser Prof. Elmer Ordoñez wrote about J.D. Salinger recently in his Manila Times column. My thesis is an extra.

Look at the yellowing typescript. Ancient artifact. Yes, I’ve been reading J.D. Salinger since before you were born.

View from the Uffizi museum, Florence.

Two tickets are on us. Maoricia, absolutelysober, john dorian, jeg, and sleeping cat, you each get a pair of free tickets to the Ayala Museum. (Jeg, let us know how many kids so we can provide enough tickets.)

Please post your full names in Comments and I’ll alert you when you can claim your tickets at the museum reception desk. If the receptionists have no idea about the prizes, have them call Ms Rinnah Sevilla upstairs and she will explain it to them.

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1104. We’ve heard from maoricia, absolutelysober, and jeg. Thanks! Sleeping cat and john dorian, please post your names soonest and you won’t be inconvenienced when you try to claim your tickets.

On Saturday I learned an important lesson. If you are driving up to Baguio in a van, remember not to sit on the left side of the van. Even if the windows are heavily tinted, you will be fried by sunlight, especially if you leave Manila after 11 am. Or you could put blackout curtains on the windows, if you don’t mind being mistaken for an undertaker.

Traffic was light up to Luisita, quite heavy all the way to La Union. Then the traffic eased up and it got a lot cooler.

I tagged along with the SM marketing team. Present at the Baguio launch were (from left to right) Tina from Naga, Karren from Baguio, Melody, Lilibeth from Lucena, Athena, and Ms Millie Dizon, VP for Marketing and creator of the myCity, mySM project (I think of her as the Minister of Tourism for the Republic of SM).

Photo by Wayne Lim.

My main objective was to visit the BenCab Museum, which celebrates its first anniversary on the 27th. The museum houses BenCab’s vast collection of granary gods (bulol), lime containers, native implements and crafts from the Cordillera (No S please, it’s the plural form), as well as his Filipino art collection and his own works (the ones collectors are dying to buy but he’s not selling). The building was designed by architect Raymund Sarmiento.

I also interviewed BenCab, who apart from being a National Artist is probably the best-known Filipino visual artist. Everyone calls him by the famous contraction, so he is frequently mis-identified as “Benjamin Cabrera”. It’s “Benedicto Cabrera”, do hire an editor who can read. The artist with his 12-year-old askal, Fatso.

The duck pond outside the BenCab Museum. In this case I know where the ducks go: they’re gone. They were moved away because the ducks kept eating the strawberries in the farm. By the way Ben knows about the egrets that hang around Buendia in Makati. He says there are plenty of guppies in the creek/canal and the egrets go fishing.

One of BenCab’s favorite pieces: a painting based on Carlos Bulosan’s America Is In The Heart. My interview with BenCab appears in the Star next week.

Despite our fairly hectic schedule we managed to get a bit of shopping done. Strawberry jam, raisin bread, strawberry, blueberry, and rice wine.

Plus blankets and walis from the market. I’m completely useless at ukay-ukay but I found some great stuff at the Commissary, knits and gloves at the souvenir shops beside the plant and flower sellers at SM, and a potted desert rose.

The clues:

The view from SM City at night.

The view from Cafe Sabel by day.

Polite bulol.

Bawdy bulol.

What my wardrobe has always needed: Cruella De Ville gloves.

The giveaway:

Strawberries picked from the garden by a National Artist. Not Carlo J. Caparas, alas.

The answer: Baguio! for the launch of the myCity, mySM tourism project right at the start of the annual Panagbenga flower festival. More later, the raisin bread you have to reserve the day before because they always run out awaits.

A friendly reminder that just because I haven’t been writing the daily posts on Demons (I took a vacation from the Internet) doesn’t mean you should be ignoring the homework. Thanks to Mark for the link to these pictures from Hello! Russia.

Today in the World Domination Tracker: two cities I intend to visit.

David John Yabis is in Warsaw.

“This is the Old Town of Warsaw at dusk. There are only about 200 Filipinos in Poland and around 100 of those live in Warsaw. Clearly this country has not yet been colonized by Filipinos but it is interesting to note that the Philippines just opened an embassy here a few months ago so I guess we’re on our way to that goal.”

Annabelle Ragsag is in Cairo.

“This is the view from my apartment in the Zamalek neighbourhood of Cairo, Egypt. The country is known for its Islamic and Pharaonic cultures; lesser known are its Coptic Christian churches, such as the one in this picture.”

Paging our Agents of World Domination (Filipinos who live outside the Philippines), we need your dispatches for the Tracker. Email a photo of your location to koosi.obrien@gmail.com.

I’ve always wanted a baul (a big wooden trunk or pirate’s chest), I don’t know why. I’ve always wanted to travel the world with a steamer trunk, or one of those large trunks with compartments like a closet. Yeah try traveling with a steamer trunk today, the excess baggage charges will kill you. And that’s before you put anything in the trunk.

Rene told me that wooden baul are made in Ilocos and used for storing their abel iloko fabrics. So I asked him to find one for me, and today I had a look at my baul.

It’s perfect. Makes me want to say “Haarrrr” and wear a bandana. I’m going to store my favorite things in it, assuming my cats don’t declare it their territory and forbid its use outside of their war games.

The inside. Fabrics not included. For baul and abel iloko inquiries, email Rene at rene.guatlo@gmail.com.

Then I spotted this in Rene’s bodega and I had to have it. It’s an old Underwood manual typewriter, dusty and rusty but otherwise in good shape. Typewriters are great for when you’re writing something intense and forceful: you can pound the hell out of the keys. Your laptop wouldn’t like that.

Does anyone know a shop that can clean and repair this typewriter?