Cirque du Soleil’s Quidam is luminous, thrilling and full of magical moments

QUIDAM presents spectacles of a wild and sometimes incoherent world, ranging from aerial feats on a column of red silk or a single rope-like trapeze, to almost superhuman acts of balance and contortion, to lighter, sillier interactive performances by not-so-traditional Cirque clowns.

TIRED of the traditional Singaporean souvenirs (keychains, stickers, magnets, chocolate from Duty Free), we went bargain hunting for some treasures in the cozy corners and less tourist-infested spots of the country (like Sentosa Island, locals say don’t buy the crappy tourist stuff there). Our top picks are the Divisorias of Singapore: Bussorah Street and Chinatown.

FROM being No Doubt’s lead singer and songwriter, Gwen Stefani has definitely come a long way. It was only late last year when she released her solo album Love. Angel. Music. Baby., with songs from the new wave and hip-hop genres that are funky, rebellious, sexy and downright playful.

CAN’T Afford. Cariton Network. Diet Another Day. Tag Hirap. If you haven’t heard about or seen these shirts for yourself, you’ve been living under a rock since 1991. One would be hard-pressed to walk around any mall and not find a kiosk or store toting a variety of smile-inducing one-liners. The success of the Spoofs Limited T-shirt line, which (believe it or not) began as a school project, is nothing short of a phenomenon. However, despite all that, the minds behind Spoofs decided to take another stroll around the business world with their new line, Branded.

WRITING is a pleasure—or, at least, it should be, once you get past the doubts, deadlines, and bouts with suicidal insanity. After all, why else would anyone do it? It certainly doesn’t pay as much as a career in politics, basketball, or drug dealing. Now, I’ve written short stories, essays, press releases, features, interviews, reviews, TV scripts, abhorrently bad poetry, and ad copy, and I’ve learned that each form comes with its own particular rewards, whether financial or artistic. Ideally, you would score high on both counts—I’d love to get paid a kazillion pesos for dashing off a perfect little haiku—but sadly, they don’t often go together (although I did derive some strange personal satisfaction from a series of Lysol ads that I wrote that were featured in mall bathrooms all over Alabang).