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Ilokos loot, originally uploaded by 160507.

Things to get in Ilocos Norte: The Chichacorn of Pure Evil. Tear open a bag and you’ll be exercising your jaws for the next couple of hours because you cannot stop eating it! This can only be part of an Ilocano plot for world domination: Control the supply of chichacorn and the world is yours. Once the world finds out about it. It’s addictive, but unlike cocaine, does not cause you to grow a third nostril.

The Pasuquin Bakery (in Pasuquin, near Laoag) has been producing delicious biscocho since the pre-WWII era. Unlike the typical biscocho, which is made of day-old bread, the Pasuquin Bakery uses freshly-baked bread. Recently, due to popular demand, the bakery started selling its “soft” biscocho, which is flavored with anise. I asked Rene, whose grandparents started the business, what the secret of their brilliant biscocho is. He said, “Lard.”

Ilokos loot, originally uploaded by 160507.

Abel iloko totebag in a holographic pattern. Express that design as a mathematical equation.

Ilokos loot, originally uploaded by 160507.

Must-have for reverse snootiness.

Ilokos loot, originally uploaded by 160507.

Handwoven abel iloko blanket. You can’t really see the pattern because it’s white on white and I’m a lousy photographer, but it is exquisite and virtually indestructible, and how often do those adjectives appear together? If minimalism is not your thing, you can bring your own design, and the weavers will execute it for you.

A gruesome little item from Popbitch: “We heard an amazing story from an aging playboy this week. Some years ago, this upper-crust chap was chatting up a buff black man in a bar and the conversation turned to their occupations. The American said he was an undertaker. And that it was to his funeral home that Marilyn Monroe was brought on her death. He went on to confess that all the local undertakers then took turns to have sex with her corpse. (FYI: The undertaker claimed the practice was rife in funeral parlours.)”

Poor Marilyn. Screwed over in life, screwed over in death. My friend pointed out that it took a while before the body was discovered, so try not to imagine the state it was in. One hears all sorts of stories about mortuaries, and I don’t mean the Six Feet Under (I never watched it) variety. They’re mostly untrue and defame an honorable profession, but here in the P.I. we guard our dead through every stage of the process.

I’m trying to convince my friend Carlo the chef to invent a sinful pork dish and call it Lust, Cochon. He says fine, but people might think it’s a libidinous mattress.

Tina and I just saw the latest Apatovian film Superbad, and we were literally crawling on the floor with laughter. Tina pronounced Judd Apatow (and his cohorts) the Henry James of contemporary cinema, if Jamesian characters said ‘fuck’ a lot and discussed sex 99 percent of the time. The final scene at the mall is absolutely wrenching, worthy of The Portrait Of A Lady or The Wings Of The Dove. I declared the Apatovian series consisting of The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, and Superbad The Godfather trilogy of our time, only instead of whacking each other the guys just whack off. Also, the series should be viewed backwards, with Superbad first. I almost swallowed my tonsils in the part where Seth Rogen explains how police work is not like TV’s CSI. Here’s a piece on our favorite cast member, Christopher Mintz-Plasse.

Scrat recommends James Gray’s film We Own The Night, starring Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg, and Robert Duvall as a family. He says Phoenix and Duvall are phenomenal. Saw the trailer, I’m buying, but there’s no way Wahlberg and Phoenix can be brothers. Discovered to my great joy that Azamat Bagatov from Borat is in Get Smart starring Steve Carell. Does anyone know when Atonement will open in Manila? The official website says November 7 but I haven’t seen any ads. Rendition vanished before I could catch it in theatres. I keep seeing the trailer of Beowulf, and let me tell you: that’s not the Beowulf we had to slog through in Old English, but Angelina Jolie as Grendel is a stunning concept.

Last year my polarizing movie was Babel. I loathed it. Granted, I loathed it with a passion, which elevated it over regular loathing. So I divided the world into two groups: those who loved Babel, and those who loathed it, then I began to question my relationships with those who loved it. Why did we even associate with each other? This year my polarizing movie is Lust, Caution. I love it, and I’ve begun to look askance at the people who don’t like it, particularly the fence-sitters who say, “Well it’s not great, but it’s almost great”. Just say you don’t like it and be done with it. Worse, I suspect that they don’t know what a fatal all-consuming obliterating passion is. Yes, it’s unfair. It is wrong to judge people by their taste in movies. But still we do.

Danton (a.k.a. Bakla sa 2010) and I took the noonday Cebu Pacific flight to Laoag. Even before the plane had taken off I was asleep; I only woke up when the plane was beginning its descent. Then I noticed that Danton, who was seated on my right, and the two gay men in the next row, would periodically, dramatically suck in their breaths like Eartha Kitt singing Boy from Ipanema (or Darth Vader climbing stairs). I asked Danton what was going on, and he puckered his lips and pointed them at the male flight attendant who was walking down the aisle. And I understood the extra oxygen requirement. The flight attendant, a tall, big-boned guy, was wearing tight pants that clung to the package. Right at eye level. That’s why the sisters were in a swoon.

Way to go, Cebu Pacific. And the flight was on time.

There was a small glitch on our return flight, this time on Philippine Airlines. Our air tickets had been purchased online and paid for with an office credit card. As we tried to check in for the return journey, we discovered that there is a PAL policy requiring passengers who bought their tickets online to present the credit card with which the ticket/s had been purchased. We did not have the credit card with us; it was in Manila. I don’t see why one has to show the actual credit card when the transaction has already been completed and the fares charged to the card. What a pain. It was the Saturday of a long weekend, and we couldn’t locate the office manager in Manila who had the credit card in question. Suppose your parents bought your tickets for you in the States and you’re not traveling together? Suppose the tickets were a gift?

Our host explained the situation to the ground crew, but they were adamant about their lousy policy, so we had to buy new tickets in order to get on the plane. The aggravation! Way to promote tourism, PAL.

So this is what lying on a private beach under the stars with the waves crashing and a bottle of wine is like. Ang daming lamok. (Lots of mosquitoes.) They don’t bite the other people, just me. Mosquitoes love me.

Nature is noisy.

Gone to Ilocos Norte. Sitio Remedios by the sea in Currimao. The Paoay sand dunes where the Panday movies were shot. Frizzling sunshine. Fabulous handwoven fabrics. The refrigerated mausoleum of Ferdinand Marcos. The cornick of wonders. Churches churches churches. Juan Luna’s house. Pinakbet pizza at Herencia. Why is a dish of talong and itlog called puki-puki? Tumba festival of altars for the dead. I’m staying in a heritage house rebuilt in Sitio Remedios. It’s supposed to be haunted but I think I scared the ghosts away.