JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

Here’s something trawled from the net by the Lifetime Underachievement Awards frontrunner. His lead may be Federeresque, but I have a few decades in which to catch up. For starters, I’ve never read Jack Kerouac, and have no intention of reading him soon.

1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy
2. Submissive to everything, open, listening
3. Try never get drunk outside yr own house
4. Be in love with yr life
5. Something that you feel will find its own form
6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
7. Blow as deep as you want to blow
8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
9. The unspeakable visions of the individual
10. No time for poetry but exactly what is
11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest
12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
14. Like Proust be an old teahead of time
15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog
16. The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye
17. Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
18. Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea
19. Accept loss forever
20. Believe in the holy contour of life
21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
22. Dont think of words when you stop but to see picture better
23. Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning
24. No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language &knowledge
25. Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it
26. Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form
27. In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness
28. Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under,
crazier the better
29. You’re a Genius all the time
30. Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven

“Vodka martini.”
“Shaken or stirred?”
“Do I look like I give a damn.”

Wow it’s like they read my blog. Venice, the fabulous Eva Green, and a bloodthirsty thug. The new Bond movie Casino Royale works for me. Here’s a 007 who enjoys killing (What’s the point of having the license if you don’t use it?). Unlike other Bonds who seemed more concerned about not wrinkling their suits, this one gets down and dirty. He runs and runs and runs, beats people to death with his bare hands, and looks naked even when fully-clothed. Every review I’ve read notes how it’s Daniel Craig’s Bond, not the girl, who recreates the famous Ursula Andress rising out of the ocean scene in Dr. No—here’s to objectifying the male body, and let me tell you, he doesn’t need a bikini top. When the scene plays you can hear the old ladies in the theatre crossing themselves—Daniel Craig is an occasion for sin. (The men in the theatre got girly; the gays got so girly they broke on through to the other side and became hetero.)

The Bond franchise has become a joke post-Connery; this year’s model brings it back to Ian Fleming. And we’ve always liked Daniel Craig or as Ige and I call him, Craggy. The French have an expression for those looks: jolie-laid, beautiful-ugly. Loved him as Ted Hughes in Sylvia; as Gwyneth suffered we said, “Get out of the frame, woman, go stick your head in the oven.” Ige has memorized Layer Cake, and while viewing Munich I was distracted by Craggy’s perfectly-formed ass (which Eva Green’s character notes in Casino Royale). Craggy’s Bond sweats in the line of work, and we would pay to watch him sweat.

Here’s The Guardian getting giggly over Craig, and The New Yorker getting all girly.

Dorski alerted me to the six-page spread on Roger Federer in the December Vogue (Nicole Kidman on the cover). In the photos by Mario Testino he models a white Paul Stuart tuxedo, a black Dior Homme tuxedo, and an Yves Saint Laurent suit, and he looks edible. Off-court he is a bit of a fashionista. Urgent message to Mirka Vavrinec: Satan wants your boyfriend. True, many of us do, but we’re not Vogue. In her letter from the editor Wintour even has to mention that she and Roger are chummy. She calls him ingenuous, magical, truly great and humble, and that’s just in two sentences. “When I told this to Roger. . .” means “We’re close”.

Critics and audiences can go hang. I love Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven. Then again I have a thing for siege warfare and plotz at the sight of a ballista. Crusades, swords, Edward Norton as Baldwin the leper-king of Jerusalem, Brendan Gleeson as the nasty Templar Reynald of Chatillion, Liam Neeson in yet another mentor role, the wonderful Syrian actor Ghassan Massoud as Saladin—what’s not to like? As with many Ridley Scott movies there are scenes that shock and awe—the pilgrims gathered at the port of Messina, the vast armies emerging from the shimmering desert. The real villain in this movie is religious fanaticism, embodied by the sanctimonious Patriarch of Jerusalem. There really was a Balian of Ibelin (the hero played by Orlando Bloom), but he was married to Baldwin’s father’s second wife Maria and not to Queen Sibylla (Eva Green). Balian did defend Jerusalem for 13 days, and then Saladin gave him terms and he went home.

The theatrical version of Kingdom of Heaven left many unanswered questions, which Ridley Scott addresses in the director’s cut DVD. Why does Balian the blacksmith know so much about siege engines? Because even before his father Godfrey returns to France, he has built siege engines for a local lord. He has done military service and knows hand to hand combat. The director’s cut includes all the back stories. The priest Balian kills is actually his brother. Godfrey’s brother is plotting against Godfrey, so when he sends soldiers to arrest Balian for murder, they have other intentions. The heir to Jerusalem is Sibylla’s young son; she discovers that he too has leprosy, and she has to make a terrible choice.

The DVD—original, not bootleg—features Tagalog subtitles which I suspect were written by a computer program. There are bizarre idiomatic lapses. During the siege Sibylla pretends to be a nun caring for the wounded. The gravedigger-turned-soldier tells her, “You are not a sister.” The translation: “Hindi ka isang kapatid na babae.” The battle dialogue is inadvertently funny/sexual when rendered in machine Tagalog. “Fire!” becomes “Paputukan!” “Let them come” becomes “Papasukin sila”, and when Balian says, “Rise a knight”, the words that appear are “Tumayo ang kabalyero.” Mr. Scott, I do translations, call me.

Got interviewed by Bulletproof Vest.

Our favorite tennis player/madman had a pretty good year—ranked 104th before the US Open, he finishes the season ranked 26th. Not bad for a two-month spell, unless you consider that he could’ve won the US Open (yes, beaten Roger) if he hadn’t flaked out in his match with Tommy Haas, whom he’s always owned, and whom he was trouncing handily until the brain went somewhere else. But we’re not complaining because we love the nut, plus the ranking could just as easily have been 226th. Here’s the updated Marat “slambook”.

Favorite color: Still black.
Favorite film: I have seen so many movies of all types I can’t determine one as exceptional.
Favorite director/actor: David Lynch. Martin Scorsese—I particularly like his last film The Departed. Edward Norton.
Favorite drink: Still Coke.