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Nyahahahaa!!! Assortment of unattractive gloating noises!

You can’t buy them in galleries. You can’t buy them at auction. You can buy a Geraldine Javier artwork for a million bucks but these earrings are priceless.

We don’t have space in our apartment for artworks (Unlike our friend the BLB who rents apartments for his collections), so we ask artists to make earrings for us. So far we’ve got a Leo Abaya, some James Reyeses, and now this Geraldine Javier. Which reminds us of her pieces from a couple of years ago.

Report by Deo Giga

Canva is a free online design platform that launched in the Philippines on 8 August. The Australian company, whose roots go back to 2007, has established its Asian hub by opening an office in Manila where it focuses on graphic design, marketing, and customer service. Asked why the company chose the Philippines, CEO Melanie Perkins said, “Filipinos have a strong design aesthetic and tend to be early adopters of new technology.” She herself is a quarter Filipino.

Canva CEO Melanie Perkins

Anyone can use the platform and the free images and illustrations available in its library for various projects: from business cards to Twitter posts, photo collages, documents, presentations and invitations, even Facebook ads, real estate flyers and—for writers publishing their ebooks—Kindle covers. You can also design a cover for a physical book.

Canva is also hiring. Professional designers are welcome to contribute designs; every time their designs are used, they earn a royalty. (Visit canva.com/designers for more details.)

Photo by Juan Chua

At the W Hotel in Hong Kong, the design theme is “library”. This makes it difficult to locate the buttons for the elevator. Oh sorry, the lift.

The books, though, are fake. Used books (which can be bought by the meter) would probably have been cheaper than fake books, but they’re harder to dust.

Ask this cat at a book stall in C.M. Recto.

Photo by Uro dela Cruz

We’ve asked Antiquary Anne to render some of the best-known first lines in literature in calligraphy. Coming up are the usual suspects: Moby Dick, Anna Karenina, The Great Gatsby, The Hobbit. Do you have any requests?

Not a first line, but a passage from the first page of The Age of Innocence, commissioned for Noel.

The classic handwoven silk carpet

We want them to stay put in our houses so we can walk barefoot on them, sit on them, sleep on them, and most of all look at them. They make furniture seem redundant.

Tribal carpet in a medallion pattern

On Saturday, 17 May at 6pm, In Touch Community Services is holding an Oriental Carpet Auction at the Bahia on the 14th floor of the InterContinental Hotel on Ayala, Makati. This is an event they do twice a year to raise funds for the community services of In Touch, such as the free and confidential psychological counseling helpline whose numbers appear on the left side of this page.

A highly unusual design, featuring cats.

You’ll see dozens of gorgeous pieces from the weaving centers of the world, and get a chance to acquire them at prices lower than you can imagine. The auction is not only great fun, but you’ll come away feeling like an expert on the history and traditions of carpet-weaving.

For inquiries and ticket reservations, contact In Touch at (02)893-1893 or (02)810-6233, or email intouch@i-manila.com.ph. If you’re from a media organization and wish to cover the event, drop us a line in Comments or email saffron.safin@gmail.com.

Cocktails will be served.

Behold our 100 Favorite Books (May 2014 revision) list, written by our resident antiquarian scribe Anne Tamondong.