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Lately I’ve been listening to Stevie Wonder a lot. Original Musiquarium, Songs In The Key Of Life, “Do I Do”. I figured it was nostalgia—plug in memory of Stevie singing “Superstition” on Sesame Street—and a craving for the kind of soulful swingy music that was popular in my childhood. I was kind of glad that “I Just Called To Say I Love You” was judged a case of plagiarism (though I’m mystified as to how it could’ve happened) because I don’t want it in the Stevie discography. (Remember that bit in High Fidelity where a guy asks record store clerk Jack Black if they have that song, and Jack flies into a rage because they don’t carry that kind of crap, and the guy says it’s for his daughter and Jack says, “Oh, is she in a coma?”)

But the “phase” has lasted too long to be a mere phase. The other regulars on my current playlists are that horny little troll-genius Prince, and Led Zeppelin. I’m glad I was a kid in the age of Zeppelin, when guitarists coaxed strange sounds out of their instruments, drummers played like they were beating their drums to death, and vocalists peppered their songs with references to The Lord Of The Rings (which I hadn’t read yet). There’s something I wish I had done in grade school at St. Theresa’s. Sometimes, during homeroom period, there would be impromptu “programs” in which you were called upon to sing, dance, or recite a poem. I always opted for the poem, but I wish I had stood in front of the class (and this is easy to imagine because when I run into my grade school classmates they tell me I look exactly the same, airstrip forehead and all) and started singing, “There’s a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold. . .” I probably wouldn’t have managed eight minutes (I still think “And there’s a wino down the road”), but it would’ve been something.

Until recently I had a personal policy against going retro: I would only buy new music, usually indie rock. This policy was rescinded when I finally admitted to myself that while I like a lot of these newer bands, I can do without them. They’re alright, but they’re just. . .alright. Hindi ako makikipagpatayan para sa kanila. I put this down to age, but I’ve wondered if there was some other reason.

Last year, the music critic Sasha Frere-Jones published a controversial piece called A Paler Shade Of White, in which he says indie rock lost its vitality when it stopped borrowing from black music. The piece is clearly calculated to provoke—in the age of political correctness anything that mentions race is sure to stir up trouble—but I found myself agreeing with many of his points. Especially when he says that today’s indie rock is, to put it more viscerally, kulang sa libog. Many indie acts do confuse lassitude and monotony for authenticity and significance.

One of the more interesting responses to the Frere-Jones piece came from Carl Wilson, who noted that “It’s not just race, it’s class.” Enjoy. Discuss. Meanwhile I’m going to annoy my cat Saffy with my rendition of “Immigrant Song”. It really ticks her off.

Three Pinoys are among the, um, winners of the 2007 Darwin Awards! Not only are they not around to claim the glory, but their identities remain unknown. The Darwin Awards are given to individuals who improve the gene pool by removing themselves from it.

“(21 June 2007, Philippines) Three entrepreneurs planned to profit from stolen scrap metal. They entered a former US military complex and approached the prize: an abandoned water tank. Bedazzled by the potential upside, the three threw logic to the wind, and began to cut the metal legs out from under the tank. Guess where it fell? Straight onto the thieves. Their flattened bodies have not yet been identified.”

Meanwhile, a radio prankster known as the “Filipino Monkey” (no one knows his real nationality, he could be more than one person) is being blamed for triggering the latest diplomatic row between the US and Iran. The “Filipino Monkey” has been pestering ships in the Persian Gulf for years. This time he almost caused American warships to fire on Iranian patrol boats.

 A 13-year-old girl hanged herself in Dardenne Prairie, Missouri after receiving insults from a boy she’d met on MySpace. It turns out that the boy did not exist but was an invention—a cyber-character created by the neighbors.

This is why I prefer my friendships to be analog: I have to know these people exist.
Friend Game in the New Yorker.

Boekhandel Selexyz Dominicanen in Maastricht, originally uploaded by 160507.

Other places to hole up in in case a virus wipes out the human population: The World’s Most Beautiful Bookstores, in the Guardian.

Carlo the Dessert Diva arrives bearing a large cake box done up in black ribbon with a big bow.

Jessica: Dapat ba talagang naka-black ribbon yan?

Carlo: Yes, that’s their order. Why?

Jessica: Isn’t that how the NPA delivers death threats? Packages tied in black ribbon?

Carlo: That’s exactly what my mother said!

Ricky: Ganyan ba ang death threat? Ang Pilipino talaga, kahit death threat, over-styled! Masyadong madrama!

Warning: Do not read this if you intend to watch I Am Legend. I put off watching I Am Legend because anyone could tell just by looking at the poster that something terrible would happen to the dog. I could bear to see Will Smith die onscreen, even if it’s impossible to dislike Will Smith or wish him ill, but I cannot watch an animal come to a tragic end. Omegaman, the earlier film adaptation of Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend, was constantly showing on TV when I was a kid, but I don’t recall if there was a dog there; all I remember is a scene in which Charlton Heston is chopping and frying onions. (My childhood memories are littered with Charlton Heston movies—Planet of the Apes, Soylent Green, and during Lent, The Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur; it was as if movies were legally compelled to cast Heston as the savior.)

But I read a good review of I Am Legend, and I figured that if there’s anyone who can carry a movie all by himself (besides Russell Crowe) it’s Big Willie. Besides, it was time for my first trip to the cinema in 2008. Never mind that I’ve yet to see a movie written by Akiva Goldsman that didn’t make me want to throw things at the screen.

I Am Legend is not exactly terrible, just flat—like a can of Coke that’s been opened and left on a table for hours. No fizz. Will could make it on sheer presence, but he works hard and is effective at conveying the loneliness and terror of a man who’s been alone way too long. But director Francis Lawrence and screenwriter Goldsman fail to give the material shape or rhythm; the fate of humanity is at stake, and we don’t feel a thing. The scenes of an empty New York City with deer running alongside cars abandoned on the streets and Times Square choked with weeds are impressive, but not nearly as eerie as the sight of empty London streets in 28 Days Later. When the monsters attack it’s not even scary. Then suddenly it’s over and you can hear the audience go, “Eh?”
And my worst fear was realized. Sabi ko na nga ba eh.

I decided that if I were the last person in New York, my cats and I would hole up at the Metropolitan Museum.

David Markson has a novel called Wittgenstein’s Mistress in which the narrator believes she is the last person on earth.

“In the beginning, sometimes I left messages in the street. Somebody is living in the Louvre, certain of the messages would say. Or in the National Gallery. Naturally they could only say that when I was in Paris or in London. Somebody is living in the Metropolitan Museum, being what they would say when I was still in New York. Nobody came, of course. Eventually I stopped leaving the messages.”

My favorite apocalyptic tale involving a boy and a dog is Harlan Ellison’s A Boy And His Dog. It was made into a movie with Don Johnson, which I’ve never seen, which I’m told is a good thing.