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In Harwich, Massachusetts, police are investigating the mystery of the piano which materialized in the middle of the woods. The piano is in perfect working condition, with a matching bench. How did it get there?

Our cue to start a contest! Here’s the situation: A piano is found in the middle of a Philippine jungle. How did it get there? Write a story of 1,000 words or less (The less the better; no minimum word count) and post it in Comments. Fantasy, SF, romance, horror, all genres accepted. The deadline is November 30. The prize is an original DVD of The Aristocrats, a candidate for filthiest movie ever made, in which some of today’s best-known comedians do riffs on an old joke.
 

 
Reminds me of the time I found a piano under the stairs. That’s where I first met the street cats we now call Janko and Jarko Jarndyce.

 

30 November, 1700h. The contest is now closed. No new entries will be accepted. The winner will be announced soon.

(Because “sleigh” doesn’t rhyme with “Fed”.) While walking around Narnia (Narnia is Greenbelt 5, the Wardrobe is Greenbelt 1), I spotted this ad for espresso machines featuring Roger Federer. The Fed is sleek, elegant, and has good manners, making him an excellent pitchman for upmarket household appliances, hair care and grooming products including shaving razors, cardigans and blazers, man-bags, and yachts. Rafael Nadal also has good manners, but I don’t see him lounging about holding a cup and saucer: his fingers may not fit in the handle, and it would be silly to put him in an ad where you can’t see his thighs. I see Rafa pitching cheeseburgers, chips, sugary drinks, knapsacks, and underwear.

Mike went to Shanghai for the year-end Masters tournament. Rafa did not play because he was injured. According to Mike, Roger in person really has an air of “Peasants, behold your king”, but it suits him and he doesn’t come off as obnoxious. The players look the way they do on television, but larger. Andy Murray is more attractive live than on a screen. Gilles Simon is “cute in that Frenchy-Frenchy way”, whatever that means (Jean-Paul Belmondo? Gerard Depardieu?). Nikolai Davydenko’s retinue look like heavies from central casting. Novak Djokovic, who won the tournament, looks better on TV.

Photo: Cute enough for Koosi, too cute for me.

My friend Ernie bequeathed me a brand-new, unused Holga LOMO camera in its unopened box.

“Why are you giving me this when you just bought it?” I ungraciously asked.

“Well you just lost a camera,” he pointed out. (Digression, digression.)

“But I have another camera, and you want this camera,” I told Ernie.

“I have another LOMO camera,” he reminded me.

“Then why’d you buy this one?” I went on.

“I couldn’t help it!” he cried. “He had a signal jammer that disrupted all neural traffic in my brain!”

This is what happened. Ernie was back at the store where he’d bought the first camera, casually looking at the displays, when the same highly attractive salesperson who’d sold him the first camera walked up to him and started giving him the sales pitch. Before Ernie knew what was happening, he had handed over his credit card and acquired a second LOMO camera he hadn’t intended to buy…

Lost and Found in Emotional Weather Report, in the Star.

Ever since I cracked my skull at age 8 I have been fascinated by psychopathy, mental illness, and general weirdo behavior. The neurologist, fearing my head would explode, had me undergo an electroencephalograph. The machine was in the hospital’s Psychiatric Ward, which was populated by interesting individuals: I remember nurses chasing a man in his underwear down the hall while he frantically summoned Batman on an invisible walkie-talkie. Now that was a formative experience. 

In Edge, Christopher Badcock expounds on the Imprinted Brain Theory, which aims to sort out contradictions in explaining mental illness. The essay includes this helpful chart comparing hypo-mentalistic (autism) and hyper-mentalistic (psychosis) disorders. (I strongly advise that hypochondriacs stop reading this NOW.)

 

The Glore Psychiatric Museum in St. Joseph, Missouri features an extraordinary collection of artifacts from the state lunatic asylum, including this artistic arrangement of 1,446 items swallowed by a patient and removed from her digestive system. 

 

 

Meanwhile my lovely friend Ige sent me this image from his dream sequence:

a perfect example of delusional behavior. 

Does anyone remember that horror movie Asylum that used to air on Channel 9 after The Waltons? In the first episode, a man murders his wife, chops her up into pieces, wraps the pieces in newspaper, and stores them in a freezer in the basement. Along with the pieces he tosses in her chunky bracelet, which turns out to have magical powers: the pieces wrapped in newspaper come alive and attack him. In another episode, an inmate of the asylum constructs a doll that is a perfect miniature replica of himself, down to the innards. Then he attempts to escape from the asylum via his mini-me; unfortunately an orderly steps on him. 

One of my favorite horror movies is Dead Of Night, in which Michael Redgrave (father of Vanessa) plays a timorous ventriloquist with a murderous dummy.

Koosi reads The Queue

I just finished reading Vladimir Sorokin’s The Queue, a novel written entirely as a series of dialogues among thousands of people standing in line in a Moscow suburb in the 1980s. They don’t know what they’re queuing up for—it could be jackets or jeans, made in Turkey or Sweden, all they have to go on are rumors—but they queue up anyway, because that’s what one did in the Soviet years of stagnation, queue up. The speakers are not identified, so we don’t know who’s saying what to whom; they jostle, flirt, argue over their place in line, fall asleep, find little ways to make the wait more bearable, gossip, go off to eat and drink, come back and wait some more. Amidst this deluge of information the reader should’ve developed a giant headache but, amazingly, you start recognizing the characters. They resist being dehumanized by the system represented by the queue. In a society where there are supposedly no individuals, they can’t help but be individuals.

The Queue, an NYRB Classic, is available at National Bookstore Shangrila, Rockwell, Glorietta, Mall of Asia, Bestsellers Podium and Bestsellers Robinson’s Galleria.

NYRD in Emotional Weather Report, today in the Star.

Kahapon, nagmiminindal kami ni Carlo sa isang magarang restawran nang mapansin ko ang lalaking nakaupo sa kabilang mesa.

“Carlo,” sabi ko sa aking kaibigan, “Masdan mo ang dayuhan sa mesang iyon. Tila nakalimutan niyang maghilamos at magbihis bago lumabas sa kanyang tinitirhan.”

“Oo nga,” ani Carlo. “Kanina ko ba napansin na suot niya ang kanyang damit-panloob bilang panlabas.” Ang dayuhan ay nakasuot ng “sando” na maluwag, maikling pantalon, at tsinelas. Wala namang masama sa pagsuot ng pambahay sa labas ng bahay, nguni’t kung Pilipino ang gumawa nito, marahil ay hindi siya pinapasok sa nasabing restawran.

“Siguro’y kaibigan ng may-ari ang puti kaya’t pinatuloy siya rito kahit siya’y nagmistulang yagit,” sabi ko.

“Nguni’t disente ang may-ari at marahil ang kanyang mga kaibigan ay marunong ng disenteng pananamit,” dagdag ni Carlo, na bukambibig ang salitang “disente”.

Naniniwala kami na bawa’t tao ay may karapatang isuot kung anuman ang kanyang ninanais, nguni’t di dapat bigyan ng mas maraming pribilehiyo ang mga dayuhan dahil lamang sila ay puti at inaakalang mayaman.

Nakakaaliw talaga ang paggamit ng pormal na Tagalog, lalo na kung ito’y ipanlalait sa mga dayuhan na walang modo. (Kung sila ay nakakaintindi sa wikang Pilipino ay mas mabuti nga.) Masyado nating tinitingala ang mga banyaga samantalang minamata natin ang kapwa nating Pilipino. Dapat matuto ang mga bisita na makibagay sa atin dahil narito sila sa ating bansa. Hindi maaaring tayo na lamang palagi ang magbibigay sa kanila.

Naisip ko tuloy: Kung si Colin Farrell kaya yung dayuhan sa restawran ay nagkaroon kami ni Carlo ng ganitong diskusyon? Ngunit ang tanong na ito’y walang katuturan dahil hindi naman siya si Colin Farrell; kung si Colin Farrell siya ay agad-agad kaming nagpakilala, at malamang ay nag-aaway na kami ngayon.

Caffe Florian, Venice. Hindi dito naganap ang kuwento. Marahil kung ang turista ay pumasok dito na naka-pambahay ay minata-mata na siya ng mga tagapagsilbi. Patutuluyin nga siya, nguni’t daragdagan ang singil sa kanya.