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I was feeling glum for no good reason (which is better than being depressed with good reason) so I thought I’d cheer myself up by watching Wanted. Excellent idea: the movie blew the gloomy thoughts out of my head. Tibur Bekmambetov’s (Russians Russians everywhere I look; really must move to St Petersburg) adaptation of the graphic novel (My sister says they changed it substantially) is ridiculous, exhilarating, insane, and fun for anyone not overly attached to the laws of physics (You mean the trajectory, not the bullet!) or probability. In it, James MacAvoy’s cubicle rat shmoe is recruited for a fraternity of assassins formed in the medieval period. (His minder is Angelina Jolie, who is more lethal than any of the men.) The Fraternity was founded by a weavers’ guild, so I kept imagining the members of the Fashion Designers’ Association of the Philippines hunting down the evil and corrupt and garrotting them with tape measures.

The Fraternity call themselves “the assassins of fate”, “fate” being represented by a loom which churns out cloth, the warp and weft of which they translate into binary code and then into the names of their targets. So if I decide that I am the instrument of fate and I eat a bowl of muesli for breakfast every day (The Bowl of Fate), and I discover a pattern in the cereals which corresponds to the names of actual people…The point being, don’t think too much and you’ll enjoy the flick.

The new, highly-anticipated Indiana Jones movie is called Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. (Highly-anticipated especially by me, since real life is not up to movie standards—I listened to two archaeologists yesterday and neither one had a fedora or a bullwhip. Although I was tempted to let a snake loose during the lecture. . .) According to the posters it opens May 22. The whole production is shrouded in secrecy, but we can assume it’s about the Aztec or Mayan crystal skulls, twelve of which are known to exist.

Now the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris has announced that the crystal skull in its collection is a fake. It’s not ancient Central American, but 19th century Alpine. But they’re still going to put the crystal skull in a special exhibition to coincide with the Indy movie’s release. It will be “hidden” in the museum, and visitors can try to find it. Alors, le museum has picked up ze lesson from ze Louvre’s handling of Le Da Vinci Code: Oui, it is absurd! Heedeeous, vraiment, but les touristes zey love it. Kacheeng-kacheeng.

Does this finding affect Indy’s box-office? Hell no, unless you believe he found the Ark of the Covenant and when the Nazis opened it their faces melted.

They’ve got an ad in The Daily Telegraph, demanding the formal restoration of the order. The last time anyone heard from them was in 1314, when their grand master was burned at the stake. Apparently they’re represented by a West London accountant who also does the books for the Wiggles. Patrick Barkham investigates. First the Ark of the Covenant is reportedly found, then the Templars—supposedly the keepers of the Holy Grail—allegedly resurface. Funny these news should emerge on the year of a new Indiana Jones movie. 

According to the Old Testament, the Ark of the Covenant was a wooden box that contained the Ten Commandments. It could also zap people and reduce them into columns of ash. The Ark was reportedly kept in the Temple of Solomon, which was razed by the Babylonians. According to Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, the lost Ark was found in the Egyptian desert by the intrepid archaeologist Indiana Jones (who, considering the amount of time he spent away from his university and the fact that he never seemed to publish any papers, would’ve been kicked out of the academe). The Ark was then snatched by the Nazis, who did not do their research—they looked when the Ark was opened, and were promptly incinerated. Spielberg and Lucas go on to say that the Ark is now stored inside the Library of Congress or some other building in Washington D.C.

According to Professor Tudor Parfitt of the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, the Ark—or a replacement container—is currently on dusty shelf in a museum in Harare, Zimbabwe. In the 80s, Parfitt supported the claim that a South African clan called Lemba was a lost tribe of Israel. Subsequent DNA tests supported this claim. The Lemba venerated the ngoma lungundu, a drum that contained ritual objects. It also zapped people and reduced them into columns of ash. Parfitt concluded that the ngoma was the Ark, which the Lemba had brought to Africa.

Naturally this theory would be greeted with skepticism, but it is fascinating stuff. Interesting how this surfaces while a new sequel to the Indiana Jones movies is in production. By the way, one thing has troubled me since the last Indiana Jones movie, The Last Crusade. Anyone who drinks from the Holy Grail becomes immortal, right? And Indy and his dad both drank from the grail. Does that mean they’re immortal?

You know Last Song Syndrome, where the last song you hear keeps playing in your head and you can’t make it stop? Well I often have First Song Syndrome—I wake up and there’s a song already playing in my head and it just keeps on going. It is usually a song I have not heard in a long time. Days later, I hear that same song being played somewhere—in a restaurant, over the end credits of a movie, that sort of thing. Could be just coincidence, yes, but I’m inclined to think otherwise. I’m from the school of “Everything means something, the refusal to say anything means something, nothing is something.” (See the Coen Brothers, below.)

Sometimes I remember conversations I haven’t had yet. For instance, I distinctly remember Chus telling me that Myrza (of Marie-Claire) had won a Palanca for short story. He ran into her, and she told him the good news. (This would be in August 2006.) I remember which restaurant we had this conversation in (Segafredo Greenbelt, now closed), where we were seated (by the window), and what time it was (around 6.30pm). Weeks later, I told Chus I was gatecrashing the awards dinner the next day (September 1), and I’d probably see Myrza.

Why, Chus asked, Did she win? Of course she did, I said, You told me. No I didn’t, he said, I didn’t know she’d won. We spent the next 15 minutes arguing over who said what. Finally Chus called Myrza and asked her if she’d won a Palanca.

Myrza said, No, I haven’t heard from them. Chus said, Maybe you should call their office to make sure. Meanwhile I’m sitting there thinking, Did I imagine this? Am I going bonkers? But I’m certain that Chus told me that Myrza had told him. There was no one else I could’ve gotten the news from—I wasn’t privy to the judging process and I’m not in with the awards people.

The following morning Chus called me. Myrza had called the Palanca office, he said, and it turns out she did win a prize! (The guard in her building put the letter in a drawer and forgot it.) So the information I “remembered” was correct, except that it was delivered backwards. Weird, but according to Special Relativity, everything that will happen has already happened anyway.

Back to FSS. I woke up this morning and “Jacksons, Monk and Rowe” by Elvis Costello and The Brodsky Quartet was playing in my head, loud and clear. It’s a very pretty song about divorce, not likely to have been blaring out of a passing jeep, not on the typical radio playlist. It’s on my iPod but I haven’t listened to it in a long time. But there are worse things to have in your head.

Weng Weng, originally uploaded by 160507.

Look at this fantastic t-shirt. I was at dinner with a film director and a retired but still fabulous movie queen (my late mother would’ve plotzed with joy) when an Australian video crew arrived. They were doing interviews with the directors and stars of Pinoy cult movies from the 60s and 70s, and they were wearing “The Search for Weng-Weng” t-shirts. I said, Where did you get that shirt, I need to buy one. So they gave me this shirt. It turns out that we all know Pete Tombs, yes, Tombs, what else would a guy who distributes classic cult and horror movies on video be called?

Uro’s father died in his sleep on the morning of the 25th. He was in his 80s and had been ill for some time. Butch was thinking of driving to Lucban, Quezon for the wake. “On the way there, we could stop at Ernest Santiago’s restaurant for lunch.” The restaurant had opened about a month before Ernest’s death.

“Great idea,” I said. “Two wakes on the same day, way to spend the holidays.” I never met Ernest Santiago, but I’ve heard many stories about him and the Cocobanana era. Joey Reyes recalled how Ernest used to turn away would-be customers at the velvet rope by saying, “Go away, it’s not your year.”

“And on the way back, we could go to Adrian Cristobal’s wake.”

“Making it three wakes on Boxing Day,” I pointed out. “The Road Trip of Death.” I had met Adrian Cristobal, but never got to know him, much to my regret. He chaired the board of judges for the English short story at the Palanca awards the year my story won. According to Isagani Cruz, Adrian had championed my story over the second prize winner, which was perfect, the more accomplished work. Adrian said my story “grabs you by the neck”—very apt description, as that is how I try to write. In fact that is how I conduct my relationships, which probably explains why most of them run shrieking for their lives. So Portents got the first, and at the awards dinner Adrian broke about twenty fingers of my right hand and boomed, “You don’t look old enough to know what portents are!” That was as good as it got for me at the Palancas; I joined a couple more times and got two thirds, then I decided to quit while I was ahead.

The car’s brakes were shot, so the road trip was cancelled. Instead we had lunch with Tina at Szechuan House at the Aloha Hotel, where David Byrne stayed when he was in Manila, in case you’re a fan. When Dick Baldovino the photographer was alive, we would visit the Norte and Chinese cemeteries after Christmas. It was the best antidote to the enforced gaiety of the season: the reminder that we were mortal.

R. Crumb’s NO HOPE diagram, originally uploaded by 160507.

Here’s something to think about as you do the rounds of Xmas parties.
R. Crumb’s diagram presents incontrovertible evidence that there is No Hope.

Let’s have another contest tonight. I’m thinking of an essay question that would at least be complicated to google.

I don’t go to poetry readings if I can help it. Usually I become violent and imagine ripping out the poet’s larynx so he can never defile the atmosphere with his pretentiousness again. Or I burst out laughing, which is rude and I try not to be rude. Musical accompaniment dulls the pain, though not by much. But I do read poetry, I like some of it, and I have a few verses stored in my memory. Sometimes when something happens to me, a line from a poem I thought I’d forgotten will pop unbidden into my head, and suddenly the experience makes more sense to me. I figure that’s what poetry is for, at least in my case.

Before he died this year, the philosopher Richard Rorty wrote: “. . .I now wish that I had spent somewhat more of my life with verse. This is not because I fear having missed out on truths that are incapable of statement in prose. There are no such truths; there is nothing about death that Swinburne and Landor knew but Epicurus and Heidegger failed to grasp. Rather, it is because I would have lived more fully if I had been able to rattle off more old chestnuts — just as I would have if I had made more close friends. Cultures with richer vocabularies are more fully human — farther removed from the beasts — than those with poorer ones; individual men and women are more fully human when their memories are amply stocked with verses.”

“We went up to the second floor where the shelves, sofas, tables and lamps are all arrayed into tasteful little room settings — rooms, but with mysterious tags hanging everywhere. Immediately I thought it was like entering a videogame world. Who lives here? What do they do? Why is that book on the table? Is that significant? Could it be some kind of clue to the occupant’s identity?

“Why does everything have weird names? Every container, shelf, cabinet or appliance had some odd name, as if people from Planet Sweden anthropomorphized these objects, naming each one they encountered as best they could. . .” Walk-in videogame in the David Byrne Journal.

Richard Dawkins reviews God Is Not Great in the Times Literary Supplement.

“There is much fluttering in the dovecots of the deluded, and Christopher Hitchens is one of those responsible. Another is the philosopher A. C. Grayling. I recently shared a platform with both. We were to debate against a trio of, as it turned out, rather half-hearted religious apologists (”Of course I don’t believe in a God with a long white beard, but…”). I hadn’t met Hitchens before, but I got an idea of what to expect when Grayling emailed me to discuss tactics. After proposing a couple of lines for himself and
me, he concluded, “and Hitch will spray AK47 ammo at the enemy in characteristic style”…

Elsewhere: Incroyable! England storms into Rugby World Cup final on Jonny Wilkinson’s boot. And Stephen Colbert writes Maureen Dowd’s column in the New York Times.

In the course of my friend’s quest we sought out a psychic who’d been recommended by a columnist. This manghuhula used regular playing cards to read the future. We sat at a table—I was the designated note-taker—and he shuffled the cards. He asked my friend to cut the deck, then he lay the cards on the table. “You used to live in Makati,” he told my friend, looking her straight in the eye. In a sort of trance, he described the house she’d grown up in, including its color, the color of the gate, and the stones leading up to the front door. Then, in similar detail, he described my friend’s mother.

“Wow,” my friend said, “You can see all that in the cards?”

“No,” the manghuhula replied, “Don’t you remember me? I was your houseboy in 1973!”

Emotional Weather Report, today in the Philippine Star.