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ALL ANGLES

rasterize, rock, Rothko, rhyme, Rohmer

This blogger has written before how dining is a total experience 'cause it taps all five senses. Well, folks, I don't really know much about it, so I related it with Powerpoint presentations. (Hu da loser?) Now, observe some restaurateurs enhance that already rich experience by making us not only dine and wine to satisfaction but marvel at the ambiance as well.
My colleague Beth at Cafe Juanita, posing
for this camera.

My friends and I didn't need to look far for such as place, 'cause we found it right there, a few blocks away from ze work crib -- Cafe Juanita. It's relatively pricey (prepare around Php 450 pax), but heck, we were celebrating and rarely.

We tried five desserts and the house's best dishes such as the aligue (crab egg) pasta, which was so good that it made me forget the names of other delightful plates we ordered. At least I remembered they were delightful. Okay.

The place's interiors are visually overwhelming. Every corner is adorned with pieces and trinkets from different corners of the globe. Exotic, mismatched chandeliers hang above the diners while the walls are draped with contrasting textiles looking like they came from Baz Luhrmann's elaborate turn-of-the-century concept film sets. (Geez, of course I only have at most a pop culture reference, not a genuine histori-cultural one. Amateur indeed.)

The photos below could be better. I made them too warm. But if you accept an excuse, that was because I was enjoying the food too much that I didn't anymore care about camera settings and composition.


Cafe Juanita.
The cafe was eclectic and Bohemian through and through. It isn't some spot one person would just frequent for refuge and creative inspiration, but a place to enjoy with friends for conversation. The interiors are too loud and glam, but they do speak of a boho lifestyle characteristic of "marginalized and impoverished artists, writers, journalists, musicians, and actors in major European cities" (source) in the 19th century.

So note the paradoxes there: impoverished and glamorous, artistic but uninspiring? The term bohemian itself has taken on a wide meaning that span these contrasts, though it has always been used to describe a lack of convention. It is not, however, of a lack of order and principle.


There exists in its style and design a harmony of colors, a consistent identity, a hierarchy of space and shapes. Its beauty is non-conventional, but it doesn't cease to be beautiful. This is something observers have to consider. Many times people err in a narrow artistic view anachronistic in the modern age. Just look at the many opinions against the artistic value of Munch's The Scream. Sigh.


A heavily designed corner in Cafe Juanita.
Now I'm not saying truths and principles change over time lest I side with today's pathetic relativism. But culture changes, and cultural products have to be seen in their own context. We no longer wear the fashion trends of yesterday, for example, and we don't judge the value of wooden antiques based on the merits of Philippe Starck. It's also not a matter of taste and emotional messages.

So alright, I admit I've been distracted in this post--shifting from a restaurant review to an art lesson. Just to say I've been really affected by the Scream's recent fall from cultural grace to penny depth. #

For use of photos, please cite Creative Commons license and attribution (see sidebar)
I've been trying to design a publication the whole day, and I recall over and over in my head what Picasso once said: "Inspiration exists when it finds you working."

Photo from Moillusions. Source: http://bit.ly/lZiM5z
Inspiration is at the very least an emotion that prepares one to create. Rocky emotions blended in artistic zeal have not only tainted otherwise bright palettes applied on canvas, but have driven artistic geniuses to go all loony that some took their own lives. No need to repeat the famous "Vincent" story.

Now, we don't want that here. First, I'm not an artistic genius. And, well, it's just another publication. And this post isn't about me:

One of the most inspiring stories on art I've ever heard is about the great Michelangelo, whom critics and scholars throughout history have judged to have had a dark and gloomy approach to his work on the Sistine Chapel.

After 400 years, the Vatican and art organizations started a sweeping campaign to sweep the Chapel and rid centuries-old soot off its ceilings and pillars. They discovered the maestro did use bright, lively colors for the world famous scenes, and not dismal and drab shades like people have come to believe for hundreds of years. (Read more about the historic Sistine restoration.)

They suddenly began saying Michelangelo did see the Gospel as carrying the messages of hope and faith and love. He saw in these scenes brightness and joy and exalted God for his creation. Oh what a contrast with how they judged his intentions before.


It is amazing what art tools can do. They can either create beauty emanating from inside, or they can lead someone to a foreboding demise. That is because too many times artists have let their emotions take the better of them. And so the fallacy of the century is to blame it all on art and the pressure to create, when the tricks are plain simple:
"Remember your first love—how much you enjoyed creating as a child. If you ever lose that sense of joy, you will need to reflect on why you lost that spark. Of course, the craft of expression takes much “dying to self” and much discipline." --Makoto Fujimura's letter to young artists
"Not all are called to be artists in the specific sense of the term. Yet, as Genesis has it, all men and women are entrusted with the task of crafting their own life: in a certain sense, they are to make of it a work of art, a masterpiece." --Pope John Paul II's Letter to Artists
 "Take your work seriously, take the business of your craft seriously, but don’t take yourself seriously. People who do are laughed at." --#The50 Things  Every Creative Should Know
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About Me

ART AS A PEDESTRIAN

Hi, I'm Camille, and I'm a real journalist from Manila. Without claiming expertise on the subjects, I try to write about my artistic and cultural encounters on this 17-year-old spot.

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Whut!

We will have but one option: We will have to adapt. The future will present itself with a ruthlessness yet unknown.
~Michelangelo Antonioni, filmmaker

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness ...
~first lines of Charles Dickens' The Tale of Two Cities

Culture is to know the best that has been said and thought in the world.
~Matthew Arnold, cultural critic

The only way to really change society is through culture ... it's not through force, it's not through armies, it's not through politics (but) through freedom.
~Dony McManus, artist

You are a fine person, Mr. Baggins ... but you are only quite a little fellow in a wide world after all!
~Gandalf in The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

"I find television very educating. Every time someone turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book."
~Groucho Marx, actor

Don't laugh at a youth for his affectations; he is only trying on one face after another to find a face of his own.
~Logan P. Smith, essayist

God is in the details.
~Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, architect

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