No space? No problem. Anywhere can be a restaurant in Hanoi

HANOI — Twenty years ago, Nguyen Hong Van opened her restaurant in an alleyway close to her home. From the outside looking in, it really doesn’t look much.

The criteria needed to open a restaurant in downtown Hanoi are thin at best.

Location, well anywhere will do. Space doesn’t necessarily need to be plentiful and as far as furniture goes, a few plastic chairs will suffice.

It’s difficult to actually put a number on the amount of eateries operating in the capital. You would struggle to walk just a few yards without passing a place selling food.

Even with your eyes closed, the aromas given off are a tell-tale sign that something good to eat is literally just around the corner.

Anywhere, it seems, can easily be converted into a restaurant.

Twenty years ago, Nguyen Hong Van opened her restaurant in an alleyway close to her home. From the outside looking in, it really doesn’t look much.

Space is tight, as alleyways usually are, but that doesn’t stop customers coming for her specialty: dried beef salad, or nom bo kho.

“I used to sell at a different location and had lots of customers,” she said.

“But when someone else rented that place, I moved into this alley because my house is right behind it.

“My neighbors also sell stuff here and gradually we have built up regular customers and they like it this way.

“But when it gets too crowded, I have to let them sit outside on the pavement.”


Hong Van makes preparation look easy. She’s a dab hand with a pair of scissors, expertly chopping up dried beef and mixing in the required herbs and broth to serve up a mouth-watering dish.

A friend told her what was needed to make the dried beef salad, but she added her own twist to make her dish stand out from the rest.

“A friend of mine showed me how to make this dish but she just showed me how to assemble the dish, not how to get the flavor right,” she said.

“I tried to learn it myself and my customers also gave me their suggestions so I made adjustments and finally came up with my own recipe.”

At Quan An Ngon restaurant in Hanoi, dried beef salad is often ordered as a side dish, enjoyed while waiting for the main meals. This, according to the chef, is because it is so quick to prepare.

“Diners come here, before ordering other dishes, almost everyone will order salad, and they really like the dried beef salad because this dish is very fast-served so they can enjoy it while waiting for other dishes,” said chef Tran Van Kien.

“When eating dried beef salad, they really like it because it delivers a delicious taste such as the creamy flavor of peanuts, and when blending with the broth, the taste is very special.”

The mixture of meat, herbs and vegetables has to be as fresh as possible. The beef is marinated in salt, sugar, garlic, oil, ginger and chili and often left overnight to ensure the flavors soak through.

As well as adding to its taste, the vegetables and nuts used also bring out a rich color making the dish even more appealing on the eye.

“The ingredients of making this salad are a combination of dried beef, papaya, carrots, herbs and roasted peanuts,” Kien added.

“It’s very crunchy when eating, with the creamy taste of peanuts that creates a very special flavor.

“A perfect salad will have the aroma of the beef. You can feel the crispness of the papaya and the creaminess of the peanuts.

“The sour of the broth has to be moderate, not too much and not too sweet. When using with salad, everything will be harmonious and very delicious when blending everything together.”

source: lifestyle.inquirer.net

Ariana Grande and Pete Davidson engaged after 24 days together is the epitome of whirlwind romance

Ariana Grande and Pete Davidson very recently became Instagram-official following rumors that they’re dating. Just a couple of weeks after that, there are reports that they’re already engaged. ENGAGED!

A source told People, “It’s a recent engagement. They’re just two people who found love quickly and make each other happy all the time. They both started talking about it this past weekend. It’s nothing they’ve been hiding.” Although the couple hasn’t confirmed anything just yet, Ariana posted then deleted an emoji-filled tweet as soon as the news went public.

But this isn’t the first time we’ve seen just how fast their relationship is going. They reportedly became a couple shortly after they broke up with their exes Mac Miller and Cazzie David. In the 24 days they’ve been together (it’s only been this long?!), Ariana and Pete have gotten matching tattoos. Both have small cloud tattoos on their fingers, and Pete got the Dangerous Woman bunny ears inked behind his ear and the initials “AG” on his thumb.

Fans have noted that it’s looking like a whirlwind romance because of the tattoos. And now they’re engaged. Hold on, I need a breather.

Anyway, congratulations, Ariana and Pete! Here’s hoping you guys talk about Harry Potter for a long, long time.

source: preen.inquirer.net

Halloween, zombies, movies changing Mexico’s Day of the Dead

MEXICO CITY — Hollywood movies, zombie shows, Halloween and even politics are fast changing Mexico’s Day of the Dead celebrations, which traditionally consisted of quiet family gatherings at the graves of their departed loved ones bringing them music, drink and conversation.

Mexico’s capital held its first Day of the Dead parade Saturday, complete with floats, giant skeleton marionettes and more than 1,000 actors, dancers and acrobats in costumes.

Tens of thousands turned out to watch the procession, which included routines like a phalanx of Aztec warriors with large headdresses doing tricks on rollerblade skates.

“It would be hard to conserve these traditions without any changes,” said Juan Robles, a 32-year-old carpenter who led the skating Aztecs. “This way, people can come and participate, the young and old.”

Such a spectacle has never been a part of traditional Day of the Dead celebrations.

The idea for the parade was born out of the imagination of a scriptwriter for last year’s James Bond movie “Spectre.” In the film, whose opening scenes were shot in Mexico City, Bond chases a villain through crowds of revelers in what resembled a parade of people in skeleton outfits and floats.

It’s a bit of a feedback loop: Just as Hollywood dreamed up a Mexican spectacle to open the film, once millions had seen the movie, Mexico had to dream up a celebration to match it.

“When this movie hit the big screen and was seen by millions and millions of people in 67 countries, that started to create expectations that we would have something,” said Lourdes Berho, CEO of the government’s Mexico Tourism Board. “We knew that this was going to generate a desire on the part of people here, among Mexicans and among tourists, to come and participate in a celebration, a big parade.”

Mexico City authorities even promised that some of the props used in the movie would appear in the parade. The government board sponsoring the march called it part of “a new, multi-faceted campaign to bring tourists to Mexico during the annual Day of the Dead holiday.”

Add to this the increasing popularity of “Zombie Walks” around the Day of the Dead, and the scads of Halloween witches, ghouls, ghosts and cobweb decorations sold in Mexico City street markets, and some see a fundamental change in the traditional Mexican holiday.

Johanna Angel, an arts and communication professor at Mexico’s IberoAmerican University, said the influences flow both north and south. She noted U.S. Halloween celebrations now include more Mexican-inspired “candy skull” costumes and people dressed up as “Catrinas,” modeled on a satirical 19th century Mexican engraving of a skeleton in a fancy dress and a big hat.

“I think there has been a change, influenced by Hollywood,” Angel said. “The foreign imports are what most influence the ways we celebrate the Day of the Dead here.”

Traditionally, on the Nov. 1-2 holiday, Mexicans set up altars with photographs of the dead and plates of their favorite foods in their homes. They gather at their loved ones’ gravesides to drink, sing and talk to the dead.

In some towns, families leave a trail of orange marigold petals in a path to their doorway so the spirits of the dead can find their way home. Some light bonfires for the same purpose, sitting around the fire and warming themselves with cups of boiled-fruit punch to ward off the autumn chill.

These days, many cities set up huge, flower-strewn altars to the dead and hold public events like parades, mass bicycle events and fashion shows in which people dress up in “Catrina” disguises.

Some say the changes don’t conflict with the roots of the holiday, which they say will continue.

Samuel Soriano, a 35-year-old insurance executive, decorates his Mexico City home Halloween-style (think giant spider webs and inflatable tombstones) and each year hands out candy to about 100 trick-or-treaters. But in his dining room, he has a more traditional “Dia de los Muertos” shrine with portraits of departed loved ones, candles, decorative skulls and marigolds.

“We decorate for the sheer pleasure of it, and to see the smiles on children’s faces,” Soriano said. “We also celebrate Day of the Dead … There’s no reason to see it as a contradiction.”

On a recent “Zombie Walk,” in which hundreds paraded through Mexico City in corpse disguises one week before the Day of the Dead, most participants said it was just good, clean fun.

“We are not fighting against our cultural traditions,” Jesus Rodriguez, one of the organizers, said as he waved a fake plastic arm he was “gnawing” on. “On the contrary, if you take off the zombie*s flesh, there are skeletons, there are Catrinas.”

Yet Mexico’s traditional view of the dead was never ghoulish or frightful. The dead were seen as the “dear departed,” people who remained close even after death. Could the outside influences threaten that?

“I don’t think that will change,” Angel said. “I think Mexico maintains the sense of remembering the dead with closeness, not fright.”

Indeed, Mexicans still enjoy the graveside celebrations. Some cemeteries grow so packed and rowdy that authorities have been forced to ban alcohol sales at nearby stores.

And Mexicans have changed the holiday themselves, without outside influences, making it a time to express social protest and social causes.

Many have erected public shrines for the nearly 30,000 disappeared in Mexico’s drug war. In downtown Mexico City in recent years, prostitutes have put on skull masks and erected a shrine to murdered prostitutes.

Day of the Dead — itself an amalgam of Spanish and pre-Hispanic beliefs — seems likely to survive, despite the rapid changes, in a festival-loving country that has long managed to successfully absorb many outside influences.

“Any opportunity for a festival is welcome,” Angel noted, “and with any influences from at home or abroad, and in all possible combinations.”

As the arm-gnawing zombie Rodriguez put it, “We love these days, Day of the Dead, Halloween, and Zombies, that is the reason why this crowd is here year after year.”/rga

source: lifestyle.inquirer.net

New Afghan puppet joins ‘Sesame Street’ characters

KABUL, Afghanistan—There’s a new face on “Sesame Street”—a sassy, fun 6-year-old Afghan puppet girl called Zari, with purple skin, an orange nose and multi-colored hair, an infectious giggle and outfits to please Afghanistan’s broad kaleidoscope of ethnicities and cultures.

Zari will wear a headscarf with her school uniform, which unlike that for girls across Afghanistan will not be black—Sesame Street characters do not wear black—but pale blue. Otherwise the eternal pre-teen will be mostly bare-headed.

She is a “universal character,” according to the team in Kabul that helped create Zari as the first Afghan character on the long-running children’s show, already the most popular in Afghanistan where children have taken Grover and the Cookie Monster to their hearts.

Zari—whose name means “shimmering” in Afghanistan’s two official languages, Dari and Pashtu—made her debut on Thursday on the fifth season of Afghanistan’s local production of the show called “Baghch-e-Simsim,” which translates as Sesame Garden.

She joins Sesame Street’s multicultural line-up, which includes Muppets in Bangladesh, Egypt and India who each do separate segments on their own national programs.

Zari, too, will have two segments in each show, one on her own and another in which she interviews people from a wide range of backgrounds aiming to educate her young audience about such things as the importance of study, exercise and health.

While many of the show’s characters are nongender specific, the Kabul producers said they felt it was important to make the Afghan character a girl to help overcome the endemic misogyny that is often excused as part of the country’s cultural and religious heritage.

The goal in bringing Sesame Street to Afghanistan had always been to eventually have an indigenous character, said Clemence Quint, program manager for Lapis Communications, the Afghan partner of the Sesame Street Workshop, which has produced Sesame Street in New York since 1969.

The two production houses worked together with Afghanistan’s education ministry to develop a Muppet that fit into every Afghan’s vision of their nation, while still conforming to the values that have made Sesame Street one of the world’s most successful children’s television programs, she said.

Zari was made in New York. Her costumes incorporate fabrics and designs from all Afghanistan’s ethnic groups—predominantly Pashtoon, Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara.

Her skin and hair were also designed to ensure that Zari cannot be identified with any specific ethnicity, but rather with all of them, Quint said. “Every Afghan can relate to Zari,” she said.

“Zari is a female because in Afghanistan we thought it was really important to emphasize the fact that a little girl could do as much as everybody else,” Quint said.

Each Sesame Street season has at least one theme, decided by the New York producers. This season’s themes are cultural identity and girl’s empowerment. “So that is why a girl was a key factor in promoting girl’s empowerment and girl’s education in Afghanistan,” Quint said.

Afghanistan has been at war for almost 40 years, since the 1979 Soviet invasion and the subsequent mujahedeen war that lasted a decade. That was followed by a devastating civil war, in which warlords drew lines based on their ethnicity and killed tens of thousands of people in Kabul alone.

The Taliban took over in 1996, and their five year rule was one of brutal extremism in which they banned women from work and girls from going to school, confining them to their homes. The radical Taliban regime was forced from power by the 2001 US invasion that ushered in a democratic experiment and billions of dollars in international aid to rebuild the country.

Part of that project was the creation of a vibrant Afghan media sector, as well as repairing the education system and getting girls back to school alongside boys. The number of children in school grew from 900,000 in 2001 to 8.3 million in 2011, according to figures from the UN assistance mission to Afghanistan. Unama says girls account for 39 percent of the total—up from near zero under the Taliban.

However, Afghanistan is still an impoverished country, with only 60 percent of its children in primary or lower secondary schooling, according to a January report by Unicef on children living in conflict zones.

In Sesame Garden, and particularly in the character of Zari, the sectors of media and education merge. Quint said the show has “the highest awareness among children’s television shows in Afghanistan, at 86 percent, and is cited by primary caregivers as children’s favorite program by far.”

It targets children aged 3 to 8 years old—slightly older than the US target group as access to formal education is limited for many Afghan children for a range of reasons, including the war and religious and cultural prejudices against girls’ schooling.

While television is largely restricted to urban areas, Sesame Garden is also broadcast on radio, stretching its reach to most of the country.

The joy in working with Zari is clear in Mansoora Shirzad’s voice as she brings Zari to life, holding the puppet above her head and wishing viewers a happy World Peace Day and happy International Children’s Day for an upcoming episode.

Describing Zari as “sweet,” Shirzad, 20, said the new character “will have a positive impact on our kids, will make the program interesting and will bring some new color to it, enabling us to convey the messages that our children need to know.”

And Zari?

“I am very happy to be here in Afghanistan,” Shirzad said in her Zari voice. “It is a very good place, I have made a lot of friends, I enjoy myself a lot when I am with my friends in Baghch-e-Simsim.”

source: entertainment.inquirer.net

AlDub gets featured in Singapore's leading newspaper

The AlDub love story has truly become a global phenomenon, winning the attention of international news and media companies.

Alden Richards and Maine Mendoza land another feature on Singapore’s broadsheet The Straits Times today, November 1.

The newspaper explained how the Kalye-serye love team has a huge mass appeal.

It claimed, “Experts say AlDub has been a huge success because it resonates with Filipinos pining for a return to old-fashioned values as a counter-balance to the crass culture that has become pervasive online.”

“Beyond the story line, the two lead stars appeal to millions because they come off as believable bearers of the values their show represents, unlike many other celebrities, who are regarded as caricatures of excess and superficiality,” it added.

source: gmanetwork.com

Orlando Harry Potter attraction enchants despite glitches

ORLANDO Fla. - The signature ride of the new "Harry Potter" attraction at Universal Studios in Orlando, a roller coaster with passenger cars that pitch, heave and spin 360 degrees through a 3-D film adventure, was shut during a media preview on Thursday after minor glitches the previous night.

"Escape from Gringotts" is the centerpiece ride of the new Diagon Alley expansion to the "The Wizarding World of Harry Potter - Diagon Alley" attraction, opening to the public July 8, which recreates the London-based wizard shopping district imagined in J.K. Rowling's book series.

The ride ran into a technical snag and broke down late Wednesday during a red carpet debut, and was still not running on Thursday. Even so, the actors who attended the preview gasped and grinned as they walked though Diagon Alley, a fully realized four-story shopping district.

"It's absolutely brilliant. It totally takes you in," said Warwick Davis, who played Professor Filius Flitwick in the film series.

To enhance the feeling of authenticity, the designers collaborated with Rowling to create additional signage and graphics that remained true to the book, said senior vice president of Universal Creative Thierry Coup.

"If we had to make up the name of a print shop, the name or wording is somewhere in the book," Coup said.

Diagon Alley is connected to Hogsmeade, the original Potter attraction at Universal Orlando, by the Hogwarts Express, a four-minute themed train journey based on the magical locomotive in the book series.

The new additions will join the main "Harry Potter" ride, "The Forbidden Journey," which is based in Hogsmeade and is an amalgamation of scenes from the book.

"Escape from Gringotts," topped by a landmark fire-breathing dragon, closely follows a storyline in which the book's leading characters - Harry Potter, Hermoine Granger and Ron Weasley - escape from the goblin-run bank vaults on the back of a dragon.

Diagon Alley resembles an old English village with a hint of enclosed American mall. Large swaths of the shopping district are covered by glass with ceilings made to look like sky and a strategically located elevated train track, allowing comfortable shopping even during a Florida summer storm.

While theme parks in Europe and Asia feature enclosed areas, open air is the norm in Florida's sunny climate, and shopping is the main activity. Potter fans can purchase a $6.95 set of chattering teeth at Weasleys Wizard Wheezes, Hogwarts school robes for $109.95 at Madam Malkins, or Dumbledore's robes, the priciest item in the shop, for $700.

On the dining side, the Leaky Cauldron restaurant offers up traditional British dishes such as a Toad in the Hole (sausage in savory bread pudding), for $8.99, and fisherman's pie for $14.99.

Comcast Corp's Universal Studios will also bring the world of "Harry Potter" to its Hollywood theme park in 2016, as part of plans to drum up attendance with a revamp and five-year expansion plan for its film-themed attractions. — Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com

Pope Francis, Netanyahu spar over Jesus’ native language

JERUSALEM - Pope Francis and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traded words on Monday over the language spoken by Jesus two millennia ago.

"Jesus was here, in this land. He spoke Hebrew," Netanyahu told Francis, at a public meeting in Jerusalem in which the Israeli leader cited a strong connection between Judaism and Christianity.

"Aramaic," the pope interjected.

"He spoke Aramaic, but he knew Hebrew," Netanyahu shot back.

Like many things in the Middle East, where the pope is on the last leg of a three-day visit, modern-day discourse about Jesus is complicated and often political.

A Jew, Jesus was born in Bethlehem in the Roman-ruled region of Judea, now the Israeli-occupied West Bank. He grew up in Nazareth and ministered in Galilee, both in northern Israel, and died in Jerusalem, a city revered by Jews, Christians and Muslims, and to which Israelis and Palestinians lay claim.

Palestinians sometimes describe Jesus as a Palestinian. Israelis object to that.

Israeli linguistics professor Ghil'ad Zuckermann told Reuters that both Netanyahu, son of a distinguished Jewish historian, and the pope, the spiritual leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics, had a point.

"Jesus was a native Aramaic speaker," he said about the largely defunct Semitic language closely related to Hebrew. "But he would have also known Hebrew because there were extant religious writings in Hebrew."

Zuckermann said that during Jesus' time, Hebrew was spoken by the lower classes—"the kind of people he ministered to." — Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com

John Lennon’s doodles, drawings, nonsense poems to be sold in New York

LONDON - The largest private collection of nonsense poems, doodles and comic drawings by the Beatles singer John Lennon will be sold in New York in June, auctioneer Sotheby's said on Friday.

Ranging from gibberish descriptions of Lennon's native city Liverpool, in northern England, to a drawing of a "National Health Cow" in an apparent jab at Britain's national health service, the collection reveals a lesser known side of the celebrated British singer, who was shot dead in 1980.

The drawings and original manuscripts are part of the collection of publisher Tom Maschler, creator of the prestigious literary award the Booker Prize, who published them in two books, "In His Own Write" (1964), and "A Spaniard in the Works" (1965).

The collection, named "You Might Well Arsk," has a pre-sale estimate of around $800,000 over 89 lots, Sotheby's said.

The sale coincides with the 50th anniversary of the Beatles' first appearance in America on the Ed Sullivan show in 1964. Watched by 73 million Americans, it shot the band to stardom.

The drawings and poems all date back to the early 1960s at the height of Beatlemania, Sotheby's said.

One of the unpublished typescripts contains a reference to the record-breaking British band's first single "Love Me Do", released in 1962.

"The Beatles (a band) hab jud make a regord ... a song they whripe themselves called 'Lub Me Jew'", Lennon wrote in his characteristic gibberish style.

"It's very much like Lewis Carroll. 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' and 'Through the Looking Glass' were two of Lennon's favorite books from childhood and he read them on a yearly basis," said Philip Errington, director of printed books and manuscripts at Sotheby's.

"It is gibberish, it is gobbledygook, and yet it's funny, it's humorous verse."

Not everyone was as convinced of their literary value. In a parliamentary debate in 1964, a Conservative politician, Charles Curran, used Lennon's nonsense verse to attack Britain's education standards.

"He [Lennon] is in a state of pathetic near-literacy," Curran said. "He seems to have picked up bits of Tennyson, Browning and Robert Louis Stevenson while listening with one ear to the football results on the wireless."

Maschler tracked Lennon down at a concert after coming across the drawings and writings in 1962 and convinced him to make a book out of them.

The New York sale will take place on June 4. — Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com

Asia rings in Year of the Horse with fireworks, festivities

BEIJING - Fireworks illuminated the skies across Asia and millions of families gathered together Friday to usher in the Year of the Horse, kicking off a week of celebrations that included a performance by Braveheart actress Sophie Marceau on China's annual televised gala.

Residents from China's small towns and villages to its sprawling megacities rang in the Lunar New Year, the country's most important holiday, by indulging in feasts of dumplings and rice cakes and exchanging hongbao, red envelopes stuffed with "lucky money."

Many of them were among the hundreds of millions of people, including 245 million migrant workers, who had crammed planes, trains and buses to return to their hometowns in what is the world's largest annual human migration.

Chinese communities across Asia also came together to celebrate, marking the holiday with flowers and offerings. Hong Kong was due to hold a massive fireworks display over Victoria Harbour on Saturday, the second day of the new year.

The lunar calendar is based on the cycles of the moon and through Chinese folklore ascribes 12 animals, one for each year in the rotating cycle. The horse is in the seventh position.

In China, the horse is traditionally associated with loyalty and energy, and is considered the second-most popular animal sign of the zodiac, after the dragon.

The phrase for "at once" in Chinese literally means "on horseback," and some popular New Year cards this year have featured money, houses or cars on horseback, expressing the sender's wish of speedy good fortune for the receiver.

This year, however, is set to be a dramatic one, according to Hong Kong feng-shui masters, as it is the Year of the Wooden Horse—incorporating the dramatic element of fire.

Conflicts, disasters, record high temperatures, an economic chill in Asia, and more trouble for pop star Justin Bieber all lie in wait this year, celebrity feng-shui master Alion Yeo told AFP earlier this week.

On Thursday, Beijing was a cacophany of light and sound as residents took to the streets to light firecrackers—traditionally believed to scare away evil spirits—into the wee hours of Friday.

But by morning, the capital was mostly quiet, as most of the migrant workers who comprise more than a third of its 20 million population had left the city to celebrate the new year in their ancestral homes.

Beijing saw a slump in fireworks sales this year amid pollution concerns among residents and a move by city officials to cut the number of licensed firework retailers by 12 percent, the state-run China Daily reported.

Levels of the small particulate pollution known as PM2.5 ranged from 140 to 160 micrograms per cubic metre from 6 pm to midnight Thursday—a figure that was still well above the World Health Organisation's recommended level of 25 micrograms, but "much better" than the all-time peak of 1,000 recorded last Lunar New Year's Eve, Beijing's environmental watchdog said Friday.

State broadcaster CCTV aired its annual five-hour gala, a tradition dating back to 1983 and featuring comedians, dancers and singers. The hugely popular program last year drew 750 million viewers in China alone, according to the broadcaster.

For 24 years it featured Peng Liyuan, the wife of Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is a soprano singer with the rank of army general. She retired from the show shortly after her husband joined China's Politburo in 2007.

This year it featured French actress Marceau, who performed Edith Piaf's signature song, "La Vie En Rose," in a duet with Chinese pop star Liu Huan.

But Chinese rocker Cui Jian, who inspired the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement and was in talks to perform on the show, did not feature. The Beijing News daily quoted his manager as saying he had refused to "change the words" of his songs.

In additional to giving traditional hongbao, or red envelopes, some Chinese this year have taken to sending Lunar New Year money by smartphone.

The popular mobile chat app WeChat, which has more than 600 million subscribers, this week introduced a new feature allowing users to send an electronic new year "envelope" of up to 200 yuan ($33), the China Daily reported. — Agence France-Presse

source: gmanetwork.com

Stress and romance in store for Horses in 2014, says feng shui master

Believers in feng shui and astrology may find this interesting, especially if they were born in 1930, 1942, 1954, 1966, 1978, 1990 or 2002: it may be the Year of the Wooden Horse, but Horses might not find 2014 to be as fun or as worry-free as they might hope, a geomancer said.

Feng shui master Joseph Chau says in his 2014 forecast that people born in the Year of the Horse are “[c]heerful, charming, loyal, friendly, hard-working, independent, energetic, subjective and self-centered.”

He advises them not to go to funerals or wakes for the whole year, and to have a blood test or oral prophylaxis done at while 2014 is still starting “to enhance their luck.”

“[T]here are many unlucky stars that are gathered under their sign and present in their life cycle in 2014,” Chau's forecast reads in part.

“More or less, they will be quite emotional and under stress at work. It is important that they know how to relax more and stay quiet for self-protection. On the other hand, they have to keep low profile and be patient to avoid unnecessary rumors and jealousy.”

On the plus side, “Horses will have a stable and satisfactory income, but they should still cut down their unnecessary expenditures and watch their expenses to avoid being over budget,” it adds.

This is also one of the “romantic years” for Horses, the forecast says. “Lovers should be patient with each other to reach a mutual understanding. Married Horses should keep away from temptation or they will face separation. They must be careful with the way they handle their relationship to avoid any conflict, especially in the lunar months of February, March, May, September and December.”

Specific instructions aside, Chau's words mostly read like good advice for anyone, whether they're believers or not, whether they're Horses or not: “Pay special attention to road safety, stay away from sharp objects and beware of problems with the eyes, heart, high blood pressure, stroke and cardiovascular system.” — BM, GMA News

Feng shui master Joseph Chau will help Mandarin Oriental Manila ring in the Chinese New Year on Jan. 30. The festivities will include Chau's energizing rituals, a lion and dragon dance, an eight-course lauriat dinner and the Grand Midnight Countdown to Jan. 31. Attendees will also have the chance to interact with Chau at a Q&A regarding his forecast.

Tickets are P3,288 each for adults and P1,688 for children, and are available at the Chinese New Year booth in Tin Hau, Mandarin Oriental.

source: gmanetwork.com

Batch of 59 rare Beatles songs to be released for sale

LONDON - Rare recordings of 59 songs by the Beatles will go on sale for the first time on Tuesday when Apple Records makes them available for download.

Apple, a label founded by the Beatles in 1968, said it would release a series of tracks from the early 1960s that were previously only available as bootleg recordings.

Among the songs to be released on iTunes are versions of "She Loves You", "A Taste of Honey" and "There's a Place", as well as outtakes, demos and live performances recorded for BBC radio.

A spokeswoman for Apple Records declined to explain the timing of the release or comment on speculation that it was aimed at extending copyright over the material.

In 2011, the European Union ruled that copyright over sound recordings should be extended from 50 to 70 years from next year, but only for recordings released before the 50-year term had expired.

The bulk of the Beatles tracks available for download from Tuesday were recorded for the BBC in 1963 but not released.

Others have already capitalized on the changes to EU legislation to maintain control over their back catalogues.

The legislation has been dubbed "Cliff's law" in Britain for the additional royalties it would provide for veteran rocker Cliff Richard, whose songs had been starting to fall out of copyright.

In late December last year, Sony Music released a compilation of Bob Dylan recordings from 1962 and 1963, giving away the reason for the move with a frank subtitle: "The Copyright Extension Collection, Vol. 1."

Sony only released 100 copies of the Bob Dylan recordings. It was not immediately clear whether Apple Records would limit downloads of the Beatles songs. — Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com

Pope inspires nativity scene art in Naples

NAPLES - Nativity scene artisans in Italy have taken Pope Francis's social message to heart this Christmas, giving a bigger role to ordinary people in their work and reviving the tradition's simple origins.

Statuettes of disgraced former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi are less and less popular at the bustling San Gregorio Armeno market in Naples, where figures of the new pope—named by Time magazine as its person of the year on Wednesday—are now all the rage.

"It's about simplicity," said Antonio Cantone, one of the city's most prestigious artists, who sells fine statuettes in the ramshackle courtyard of a 16th-century palazzo near the market.

Cantone has been commissioned to make the giant nativity scene that will be unveiled on St Peter's Square at the Vatican on Christmas Eve this year—the first Neapolitan artist to have the honour.

"I have based the scene on the message of Pope Francis," he said, adding that it will feature prominently a pauper dressed in rags and a peasant and shepherd bearing humble gifts.

"There are no noblemen, except for the Three Kings," Cantone said, adding: "The first to arrive when Jesus was born were ordinary people, that is the core of the message I wanted."

Elaborate nativity scenes began in Naples churches in the 18th century to make religious teachings more accessible by including snapshots of daily life that people could relate to.

The custom was then adopted by the aristocracy and spread to ordinary people, becoming a yearly and much-loved tradition for millions of Italians.

The most traditional statuettes are painstakingly handcrafted out of terracotta, given glass eyes and painted—each one a unique work of folk art.

Pope: 'You made me look thinner'

"Nativity scenes are a serious thing. They can transmit a message," said Cantone, adding that many popular additions—like a tavern setting—were intended as a warning against the perils of sin.

More recently, some artists have begun crafting more unorthodox statuettes—from football legend Diego Maradona to famous tenor Luciano Pavarotti—in a bid to raise their profile.

But Cantone, who started out as an art restorer and took up making nativity figures later in life, has a more academic approach to the craft.

He said his inspiration for the Vatican nativity came from the oldest, purest historical tradition "with no contamination, no excesses".

Shoppers thronging the tiny street of San Gregorio Armeno, which is visited by tens of thousands of people a day in the Christmas season, echoed the idea of going back to basics.

"I like the classic nativity scene... No Berlusconi, no!" said Bianca, a pensioner out shopping with her husband for a nativity scene for their son, who has had to leave Naples because of the city's rampant economic crisis.

"The tradition had fallen away but now it's back in fashion," she said.

Following multiple sex scandals and trials and his eviction from the Italian parliament last month, Berlusconi is very much out of favor at San Gregorio Armeno, but the statuettes of Pope Francis are selling like hotcakes.

Artisan Genny Di Virgilio, whose family has been in the business since 1830, said the pope is his top seller but noted that "current affairs statuettes" should not be confused with the traditional nativity, which he said would be a "blasphemy".

Demand is so high for the pope that Di Virgilio cannot make the terracotta figures fast enough.

"Yesterday I had 80 of them and I sold them all by 11 in the morning! I had one guy from Florence who bought the raw terracotta model and took it just like that, unpainted!" Di Virgilio said.

The artist met with the pope during a general audience and handed him a statue of himself.

"You made this? Good, good, you made me look thinner!" Di Virgilio said the pope told him.

The pope's statue was "definitely" more popular than that of his predecessor, Benedict XVI, because "all the generations like him," Di Virgilio said.

Giorgio Sannino, 26, out Christmas shopping with his girlfriend, is one fan.

"We have to get one! We like this pope a lot because he is close to people.

"I think it is an important statue to have for any self-respecting family." — AFP

source: gmanetwork.com

Early pieces by graffiti artist Banksy added to Los Angeles auction

LOS ANGELES - Four early works of elusive British artist Banksy will go on sale at an auction in December, joining the artist's "Flower Girl" piece, Julien's Auctions said on Monday.

The four graffiti works include "Happy Choppers," a 2002 mural that first appeared on a wall at the Whitecross Street Market in London and features a stenciled group of military helicopters, one adorned with a pink bow.

The piece is estimated to fetch between $150,000 and $200,000, and will join the sale of "Flower Girl," a stencil work that first appeared on a Los Angeles gas station wall. It is expected to fetch between $150,000 and $300,000.

Beverly Hills-based Julien's Auctions said the auction marked the first time that Banksy's public street art had gone on sale in the United States.

The works were all put up for sale by private owners whose identities remain confidential. The consignors to decide whether Banksy receives any part of the proceeds, Julien's said.

Also included in the sale are two other works from Banksy's 2003-2004 tour in Germany, which were discovered on walls in Berlin. "TV Girl" features a stencil of a girl holding a television set with an orange heart on the screen, while "Umbrella Rat" depicts a rat dressed in a bowler hat and tie, parachuting with an umbrella.

"TV Girl" is expected to fetch between $80,000 and $120,000 while "Umbrella Rat" is estimated between $40,000 and $60,000.

The final piece to be added to the collection is a 2003 work called "Black Bobby," from Banksy's tour in Sydney, Australia. It features a silhouette of a British policeman writing a ticket and is valued between $20,000 and $30,000.

Other works in the "Street Art" collection include canvases and paper pieces by artists Risk, Indie 184 and MearOne.

Banksy is the pseudonym of a graffiti artist who first emerged in Bristol, England, as part of an underground group. He hides his identity and real name, and his works have become collectors' items, prized for their trademark spray-paint stencils and offering social commentary.

The auction follows a month-long "street residency" by Banksy in New York through October, during which he placed murals, sculptures and artwork around the city.

One stunt included selling original canvas artwork for $60 at a street-side stall, with buyers having no idea they were purchasing Banksy originals. He also dropped off a painting at a Housing Works thrift shop, which funds charities for AIDS and the homeless, snubbing the art world. The thrift shop auctioned the painting, which fetched more than $600,000.

As Banksy's street work often appears on private property, it has brought up questions of ownership. This year, two of his murals were pulled from a Miami auction when questions arose about the ownership of one and how it had been obtained.

The work, "Slave Labour," eventually sold at a private auction in London for $1.1 million in June, a sign of growing demand, and prices, for a Banksy original.

The artist also appeared in the 2010 Oscar-nominated documentary "Exit Through the Gift Shop" with his face obscured and voice altered. His works are verified through his website (www.banksy.co.uk). — Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com

International art project paints colorful murals on Nepal's walls

KATHMANDU - Nepal's capital has been given a facelift thanks to a team of local and foreign artists who painted dozens of elaborate and meters-high murals on walls, some depicting social issues like child trafficking.

Gone are political flyers, movie posters and other advertisements slapped on some of Kathmandu's drab walls, replaced by colorful paintings, some as high as 25 feet (7.6 meters).

Some 60 artists have been involved in the project called "Kolor Kathmandu" which began in January and will culminate Thursday with the launch of a book of photographs on the murals.

"Kathmandu used to be a city of art and culture," said Yuki Poudyal, director of the project.

"But when I returned home after five years studying in the United States, I saw that it was bombarded with posters and negative visuals," said Poudyal.

The artists targeted the walls of public and private buildings, in a months-long project that features 75 murals on religious and abstract themes but also on some of Nepal's problems including caste discrimination.

Poudyal said the artists, from some 20 countries, have tried to represent Nepal's 75 districts in the paintings so that Kathmandu residents can "know stories from different parts of the country."

One mural shows girls displaced from their families, during annual flooding that occurs in Banke district on the Indian Nepal border, and falling into the hands of human traffickers.

Poudyal, who studied sociology at St Lawrence University in New York state, said she launched the project after drawing inspiration from street art in US cities like Philadelphia.

"Art like this was limited to the Western world. But now we have introduced it in Kathmandu," she said.

The project received financial backing from Prince Claus Fund, a Dutch charity, and artists were encouraged to apply to take part. Permission was gained from the buildings' owners before the artists started work on their murals, some of which took two weeks to complete.

"Curiosity is a hallmark of street arts and murals. People would stop and watch," the artists work, Poudyal said.

She said the murals also appear to have impressed the poster boys who slap flyers on walls around the city as well as graffiti artists, who have left the murals alone.

"Not a single mural has been painted over by someone. People seem to respect our works," she said. — Agence France-Presse

source: gmanetwork.com

Bob Dylan to exhibit his new artwork in London gallery

LONDON - New pastel portraits by American singer Bob Dylan will go on show for the first time at London's National Portrait Gallery next month, the gallery said on Monday.

The 12 new works in the "Bob Dylan Face Value" exhibition in September represent the latest portrait studies from the "Blowin' in the Wind" singer who has sketched and drawn since childhood, but only began exhibiting six years ago.

"Bob Dylan is one of the most influential cultural figures of our time," National Portrait Gallery Director Sandy Naime said in a statement.

"I am delighted that we can now share these 12 sketches which were made for display at the National Portrait Gallery."

The portraits represent characters, with an amalgamation of features Dylan has collected from life, memory and his imagination and fashioned into people, some real and some fictitious.

Dylan, 72, has exhibited previous art collections of sketches, gouaches and watercolors in the past in other cities around the world.


The singer's ballads like "Blowin' in the Wind" became anthems of the civil rights and anti-war movement in the United States, while the musical innovation and cynical lyrics of "Like a Rolling Stone" established him as a counter-culture symbol. —Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com