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A little town in Austria, originally uploaded by 160507.

Don’t forget your screwdriver.

Suddenly remembered these friends of mine who had a gaming club in UP. One of the club members liked to cuss a lot. He’d go, “Dat packing teacher. Dat packing exam.” So everyone just called him Paking.

Twisted8, originally uploaded by 160507.

May you see the year through pastel-colored macarons.

Twisted8, originally uploaded by 160507.

I visited the bookstores in Ayala Center today to see if Twisted 8 is on the shelves.

National Bookstore Glorietta has run out of Twisted 8 copies. There are 6 copies available at Powerbooks in Greenbelt 4 (Philippine Publications, 2nd floor as you step off the escalator), 2 at Powerbooks in Glorietta 3 (bottom right of the Philippine Publications shelf), and 3 at National Bookstore in Greenbelt 1 (New Titles table facing the door).

Twisted 8 retails at P250. Discounts offered on orders of 10 copies or more; email zeusbooks.twisted8@gmail.com (Sorry, the zeus.books@gmail.com address is not working. Please email zeusbooks.twisted8@gmail.com). If your school organization or book club or group would like to organize a Twisted 8 reading and book signing, email me at zeusbooks.twisted8@gmail.com to schedule an event.

A scene from Annie Hall, originally uploaded by 160507.

Found in Quiapo: Marcel Ophuls’ film The Sorrow and The Pity. Look at the top left corner of the front cover: Woody Allen Presents. How else do you market a four-hour documentary about French collaborators during the Nazi occupation?

In Annie Hall, arguably his best movie, Alvy and Annie are two minutes late for a screening of Bergman’s Face to Face, so he drags her to The Sorrow and The Pity. Later, he runs into her as she’s dragging a date to see The Sorrow and The Pity.

Just saw Annie Hall again. Here’s the ending: “This guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, Doc, my brother’s crazy. He thinks he’s a chicken. The doctor says, Well, why don’t you turn him in? And the guy says, I would but I need the eggs. Well I guess that’s pretty much how I feel about relationships. You know they’re totally irrational and crazy and absurd but I guess we keep going through it because, uh, most of us need the eggs.”

Guga in airports, originally uploaded by Koosama.

19 May 2006. It’s midnight, and seven hours before boarding. I am hanging out in an empty airport in Trieste, which used to be the port of the Austro-Hungarian empire, then part of Yugoslavia, and is now the tip of Italy. It is not Hong Kong airport, that’s for sure. The snack bar is a vending machine, and there is no Louis Vuitton store.

There’s one other passenger camping out at the airport. Indian, I think—he walked up to me and asked if I was Indian, I said no, and we never spoke again. By silent agreement we’ve divided the place in two—he stays in the arrivals area and I in the departures. I’ve stretched out on a metal bench in front of the police station, surely the safest spot in the airport—unless the cops themselves have a showdown. I can hear them having a loud, possibly violent argument inside their office. The bench isn’t too bad and my stuffed toy leopard Guga makes a good pillow, but the metal is cold even if I have on three layers of clothes. I sleep a total of 30 minutes in four hours. The rest of the time I read The Stones of Florence and check my watch. I’m not scared or lonely, though I feel like a homeless person living in a terminal. At 5 am all the lights come on and the staff begin to arrive. I check my suitcase, then have a coffee at the bar. The hardest part is not losing consciousness while waiting for the 7.10 flight to Rome. The moment I strap myself onto the seat I’m asleep.

treeofsmokefellapart2.JPG, originally uploaded by 160507.

This is not the prize, I just wanted to show you this book. Butch passed me his copy of Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson. He bought it new, a first edition, from Powerbooks about a month ago, and it literally fell apart while he was reading it. (Correction on previous post on Tree of Smoke: Johnson was not a consultant on Apocalypse Now, but he’s spent time in the Philippines. By the way, does anyone know if William Boyd actually came here to research The Blue Afternoon?) Maybe the good people of Farrar Straus Giroux need to check their binding. I don’t mind having the book in pieces, though—this way I don’t have to lug the entire doorstop-sized volume around, just the chunks I’m reading.

Now the contest. The prize is. . .a copy of Stars and Bars by William Boyd, which was adapted for film in the 90s. Mediocre, but it stars Daniel Day-Lewis. The book goes to the first person who answers all these questions correctly. Thanks to Chus and Ricky for thinking up the items.

1. In which movie does Rita Gomez tell her daughter in her distinct Rita Gomez enunciation: “Why don’t you traahvel? Go to Yooh-rope.”
2. Name the movie in which Ricky has one line: “O, tapos?”
3. Noel and I suspect we are the only people who have seen all the movies by this American writer-director whose first movie contains an extended argument about Mansfield Park.
4. What movie contains this bit of dialogue:
- Mag-ko-confrontation scene ba tayo?
- Wag na, nakakapagod.
5. Stefania Sandrelli and Dominique Sanda do the tango in which movie?

10.52am. Ha! No entries yet, and in this instance googling will not help you! Okay, item 2 is too specialized, as in only Ricky’s friends would know, so here’s a clue: Sharon Cuneta stars in it.

21.21. Ha! Only one entry posted, with a score of 2/5. The answers:  1) Ina, Kasusuklaman Ba Kita? 2) Crying Ladies by Mark Meilly 3) Whit Stillman’s Metropolitan; his other movies are Barcelona and The Last Days of Disco 4) Salawahan by Ishmael Bernal, a treasure trove of great lines, and 5) The Conformist by Bernardo Bertolucci.

No one wins Contest #3. The prize will be given out in Contest #4.

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.

manikako, originally uploaded by 160507.

This is Cofradia, a rag doll by Chus Lozada. She will be part of an exhibit and auction at The Podium in January. Proceeds from the auction will fund a children’s art workshop. For details or your questions on doll-making, email Chus at chuslozada@gmail.com.

Cat’s eyes, originally uploaded by 160507.

While cleaning out some cabinets Tina found a couple of her mom’s old eyeglasses and gave them to me. They’re from the 50s, in zinc, beautifully-made (note the details etched into the metal), not that mass-produced stuff we get today. I took them to my optometrist (Nella Sarabia, UP Shopping Center) and she replaced the lenses for me. They’re kind of a tight fit—the material is not flexible—so I can only wear them for an hour before I start feeling like Joe Pesci in Casino (where they put his head in a vise). If you ever find your grandmother’s old spectacles and you have no use for the frames, let me know, I’m interested.

Meanwhile, here’s my favorite review of the day: Lucy Mangan surveys critical reception of the Spice Girls tour. “The reviews are in, and everyone is agreed on one thing - the backing dancers were wonderful.”

Totally unrelated P.S. I’ve been to Cyma in Greenbelt, Shangri-La, and Trinoma, and all their menus offer “Greek Coffee” but none of them actually serve coffee. In Greenbelt they used to order coffee from Segafredo next door, but now that Segafredo’s closed, you’ll have to move to another place for your post-meal caffeine.

Just when you thought it was safe to go into a bookstore, TWISTED 8 appears on the shelves! TWISTED 8, the latest collection of seriocomic essays by Jessica Zafra, hits bookstores in the next couple of weeks. Want to get it before everyone else does? We’re taking advance orders at zeus.books@gmail.com, and giving discounts for orders of six books or more. TWISTED 8 is available in book 80 lbs that will not disintegrate after several readings, P250 per copy. Order ten copies and co-publishers Ige Ramos and I will even meet you for coffee to hand over your books. Email us! Now!

Guga in airports, originally uploaded by Koosama.

This is for Ige, who recently spent 24 hours in an airport terminal—fortunately not on this list—trying to get on a flight to Manila. Foreign Policy lists the five worst airports on earth (NAIA’s not one of them! Yay!):

Léopold Sédar Senghor International Airport, Dakar, Senegal. “There is only squalor, an unnerving sense of confinement, and to some extent danger.” —Patrick Smith, Salon.com, May 25, 2007. Standing room only. To think the Concorde used to fly there.

Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi, India. “Of all the regional capital airports this one takes the cake … a piece of crap … bring the bug spray.” —Anonymous commenter, The Budget Traveller’s Guide to Sleeping in Airports, Dec 11, 2005. Aggressive beggars and used syringes on the terminal floor.

Mineralnye Vody Airport, Mineralnye Vody, Russia. “Mineralnye Vody airport is a lower circle of hell.” —The Economist, Dec. 19, 2006. Snow, ice, and feral cats inside the terminal, plus a guy selling swords and daggers as souvenirs.

Baghdad International Airport, Baghdad, Iraq. “Before jumping out of your seat to complain to the pilot, consider the good news: You’ve just avoided being shot down by a missile.” —Alan T. Duffin, Air & Space magazine, Oct./Nov. 2006. Stomach-churning corkscrew landings. It IS a war zone.

Charles de Gaulle International Airport, Paris, France. “Charles de Gaulle is a disgrace … it’s like a third-world airport.” —Michel-Yves Labbé, president of French travel company Directours, Aug. 14, 2007. Grimy, confusing, overpriced, and the staff is rude. (It’s actually not that bad, but it’s in Paris! It should be better.)

I suddenly remembered how I made a miscalculation in my travel arrangements and ended up spending the night at the airport in Trieste, trying to get some sleep on a cold metal bench while policemen had what sounded like a violent argument that may have been a regular card game. Where’s my notebook from 2006?

Dispatches from Nantes, originally uploaded by 160507.

Raymond texted from the Nantes film festival, where Endo is in competition. The first screening was yesterday at 10.45 am. It was sold out. The audience loved it. The leads Jason Abalos and Ina Feleo were applauded on the street.

In photo, from left: Jason (Chin up, please lose bonnet), Ina (Lovely but big earrings swallowed up by scarf), writer-director Jade Castro (Let me get Chuvaness for a second and say that is not a Prada trenchcoat. Come on, humor your stylist). More dispatches later.