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We spent a half-hour flagging cabs in the rain, hired an overpriced hotel car, sat in traffic for an hour, broke my rule about setting foot in Maul of Asia, missed the cocktails, had to surrender our phones, and ended up having a late dinner in the last place on earth that still plays Bobby Brown, in order to watch The Dark Knight premiere at IMAX, and it was worth it.

This is the Frank Miller Batman: bleak, intense, often scary. The amazing Heath Ledger takes us to dark places we wish we didn’t have to look, but suddenly we understand the Joker. Did you even think that was possible? What a flat cartoon Nicholson’s Joker now seems. Maggie Gyllenhall has the best gaze in the cinema today. Christian Bale holds it all together with dignity and the terrible intelligence of the hero who knows that society must reject him.

Remember how, in school, there were DC and Marvel factions? The DC fans were regarded as silly and shallow, while the Marvel fans were complicated and troubled? The Dark Knight makes the recent Marvel movies (and Batman Begins) look glib and happy. Christopher Nolan reminds us that there is nothing simple about the battle between good and evil. Brilliant. This is possibly the best superhero movie ever made.

A few months ago I wrote a piece on the pre-Hispanic gold exhibition at the Ayala Museum. I viewed the collection three times in the course of the writing, and I always brought my very large shoulder bag. After the article came out in Newsweek, the museum director sent me a nice note with complimentary tickets to the museum enclosed. (The entrance fee, including the Crossroads of Civilizations exhibition, is P450.)

Yesterday I had lunch with my friend Ligaya, who is visiting from Paris. Since we were near the museum, I suggested we look at the old gold. We used the second-floor entrance, handed in the comp tickets, and signed the visitor book. The very polite staff told us we had to deposit our bags at the lobby. Ligaya did not want to leave her bag as it contained all her travel documents. I figured the guards would let us bring our bags; if they were suspicious, they could assign one of their number to follow us around, since there were more guards than visitors on Sunday afternoon.

We took the elevator to the fourth floor and walked into the exhibition hall. The guard let us in. We were already looking at a display of very large earrings when another guard approached and brusquely announced that we had to leave our bags in the lobby. “Sinabi nang iwan yung bag, e,” he said. It was not the content that ticked me off, it was the tone. Another guard said, “Complimentary tickets pala.”

One, I do not allow myself to be scolded by security guards. Two, whether the tickets were free or not, all museum visitors are entitled to common courtesy.

As a rule I no longer argue with security guards. It is clear we do not understand each other. So Ligaya and I went down to the lobby, explained to the desk staff that we did not want to leave our bags, and asked them to return our tickets. Which they did, politely and without fuss. Then I texted one of the museum managers and told her what happened. She apologized and said the No Bags policy started after an accident involving a large bag in the porcelain exhibition. She said they were putting in lockers so visitors would feel safe about leaving their things. That’s nice. But, see, the people in charge are always polite. The people who actually have to face the public act like we’re trespassing on their property. I would prefer not to be treated like a terrorist.

In Slate, Daniel Riley reviews the case for cockroaches surviving a nuclear holocaust. Will cockroaches really inherit post-apocalyptic earth? “…Studies over the last half-decade, such as those conducted by the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, have found that these “other insects” are more likely to reign in the age after humans; the cockroach might, in fact, be one of the first bugs to go. More recently, the television show MythBusters tested the effects of radiation on several kinds of insects and discovered that tiny flour beetles were the hardiest—with some surviving a dose of 100,000 rads…”

Two profiles from the diaspora.

In the Daily Mail (London), July 3: Barefaced Contessa jailed for 5 years for fleecing 2.3 million pounds from unsuspecting victims. “A conwoman who claimed to be the world’s richest person to fleece victims of their life savings was jailed for five years yesterday. Elda Beguinua, 63, known as the ‘Barefaced Contessa’, claimed she was an aristocrat worth ‘£300 followed by 41 noughts’ making her a ‘tredecillionaire’. Filipina Beguinua, who lived in a rented semi in Dulwich, South London, was found guilty at Southwark Crown Court of a string of fraud charges. . .”

In the New York Times, July 10: Nurse claims employer enslaved her.
“According to 2006 census data, more than 2.9 million people in the United States consider themselves of Filipino origin; nearly 1.6 million were born abroad. Filipinos have especially flooded domestic service jobs as well as the nursing field, where they have helped to relieve the shortage of registered nurses. Filipino nurses are now the single largest group of foreign-educated nurses in the United States. Of the New York metropolitan area’s 215,000 Filipinos, about 3 out of 10 work as nurses or other health-care practitioners, and many of the remainder are their relatives, according to a census analysis by Susan Weber-Stoger, a demographer at Queens College.”

We had two options at the cinema: the Chinese epic The Warlords, or the romantic musical, Mamma Mia. Hmm. Swords and carnage or Abba and Meryl Streep? No contest. Not that we don’t love Meryl, but if I never hear “Dancing Queen” or “Chiquitita” again, I’m a happy cat. With bloodcurdling cries of “Takeshi Kaneshiroooo!” Chus and I ran to see the Chinese war movie.

The Warlords is a very intense, impressive piece about the necessity of warfare, the burdens of leadership, and how history is determined not so much by the victors of conflicts but by the political machinations behind the scenes. If a group is determined to achieve its goals by any and all means necessary, regardless of the ties of blood and friendship, then there is nothing to stop it. They make Macchiavelli look like a ditherer.

On another level, the protagonists could really use some Chapstick. Chapped lip or not, Takeshi is so handsome it’s ridiculous.

What a refreshing idea.

Laura Miller at Salon has a piece on Barack Obama’s favorite books and what they say about the man who may be the next president of the USA. He would become the most literary president in recent memory. (The piece neglects to mention Bill Clinton, who by many accounts was a voracious reader; his reading list has been overshadowed by his other appetites. It does mention John F. Kennedy, who won a Pulitzer but whose taste in literature did not stray far from Ian Fleming. By the way has anyone read the new 007 novel by Sebastian Faulks? Faulks’s other fiction is a bit too soggy for me.)

Apparently Barack reads a lot of serious fiction: his favorite authors are Herman Melville, Toni Morrison, E.L. Doctorow, and Philip Roth. Since books have entered the discussion, John McCain has said that his favorite book is Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom The Bell Tolls. Bit predictable. (If you are interested in the Spanish Civil War, you have to read George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia, his gripping, passionate, but clear-eyed account of his experience as a militiaman.)

Ask a Filipino politician what his/her favorite book is, and nine times out of ten he/she will say, “The Bible”.