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Friday, July 11, 2003
Baring it all, and baring for a cause!
By Giovanni F. Madrid
A FEW months back, a photo-journalist pal who is working with a highly-reputable Manila publication told me of a resource center for AIDS victims and of its deeply practical generosity to a wide variety of men (including women) contending with the disease.
He meant to publish a volume of photographs of budding male models and movie actors, which he had taken along with his group.
The said photos were views of half-nude young men, which were artistically shot. His group intended all profits from the book to benefit that particular resource center, and he asked some of his friends from various fields of endeavor, to help him in this project.
He likewise asked me to find a way to write some relevant foreword or preface. Sight unseen, I daringly took his challenge and the chance of working with what I thought is a very relevant cause with a resolution that my part in his upcoming book would be a silent homage to Lawrence Espino, an upcoming male model here who was earlier reported to have been brutally murdered, but who had actually died of AIDS.
When I saw the pictures set out in order, I was awestruck at once by their provocative but all-pervasive air of innocence and serenity.
These unimpeded men, with soulful looks and blank stares in their eyes - all moved in a whole other world of unselfconscious ease -- but of delight in the strengths of a vital body.
Like any good sequence, the broad range of photos make a larger than any other image.
And for me, at least that statement suggests a mythical Eden - the farthest pole from our desperate needs and those of our kin in the human family.
So finally, I have started writing a narrative poem about that first long beautiful day - the last such day in all of time - when Adam, our very First Father, stood alone in full perfection through paradise, seeking his mate.
And we hope this forthcoming book, this visible dream of joy and light, will bring real help to people now in pain and anguish.
(July 11, 2003 issue)
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