JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

The word for the day, from the Eskimo: kunlangeta. Appropriately, it sounds like kulangot. We all know at least one; too bad we have no ice.

“Psychopaths are as old as Cain, and they are believed to exist in all cultures, although they are more prevalent in individualistic societies in the West. The Yupik Eskimos use the term kunlangeta to describe a man who repeatedly lies, cheats, steals, and takes sexual advantage of women, according to a 1976 study by Jane M. Murphy, an anthropologist then at Harvard University. She asked an Eskimo what the group would typically do with a kunlangeta, and he replied, “Somebody would have pushed him off the ice when nobody else was looking.”

“The condition was first described clinically in 1801, by the French surgeon Philippe Pinel. He called it “mania without delirium.” In the early nineteenth century, the American surgeon Benjamin Rush wrote about a type of “moral derangement” in which the sufferer was neither delusional nor psychotic but nevertheless engaged in profoundly antisocial behavior, including horrifying acts of violence. Rush noted that the condition appeared early in life. The term “moral insanity” became popular in the mid-nineteenth century, and was widely used in the U.S. and in England to describe incorrigible criminals. The word “psychopath” (literally, “suffering soul”) was coined in Germany in the eighteen-eighties. By the nineteen-twenties, “constitutional psychopathic inferiority” had become the catchall phrase psychiatrists used for a general mixture of violent and antisocial characteristics found in irredeemable criminals, who appeared to lack a conscience.

“In the late nineteen-thirties, an American psychiatrist named Hervey Cleckley began collecting data on a certain kind of patient he encountered in the course of his work in a psychiatric hospital in Augusta, Georgia. These people were from varied social and family backgrounds. Some were poor, but others were sons of Augusta’s most prosperous and respected families. Cleckley set about sharpening the vague construct of constitutional psychopathic inferiority, and distinguishing it from other forms of mental illness. He eventually isolated sixteen traits exhibited by patients he called “primary” psychopaths; these included being charming and intelligent, unreliable, dishonest, irresponsible, self-centered, emotionally shallow, and lacking in empathy and insight.”

Suffering Souls: The search for the roots of psychopathy, by John Seabrook.

 

2. Figure out which tribes to bribe in Afghanistan.

5. Find out who will succeed Kim Jong-Il in North Korea.

6. Learn not to pout so much.

7. Wear fewer clothes in next Bond flick.

Five real missions for James Bond, in Foreign Policy.

Mula nang mapanood ko ang pelikulang Liham Mula Sa Isang Di-Kilalang Babae ay naging tagahanga na ako ni Max Ophuls. Si Max Ophuls ay isang direktor galing sa Vienna, Austria na gumawa ng mga pelikula sa wikang Ingles, Pranses, at Aleman. (Ang kanyang anak na si Marcel Ophuls naman ang gumawa ng Ang Kalungkutan At Ang Awa, dokumentaryo tungkol sa pakikipagkuntsaba ng mga Pranses sa mga Nazi noong Ikalawang Digmaang Pandaigdig.) Napanood ko rin ang iba niyang pelikula tulad ng Lola Montez at La Ronde—na napakaganda kahit hindi ko ito ganap na naunawaan dahil ito ay nasa wikang Pranses at hindi isinalin sa Ingles. Nasasabi kong maganda ito—kahit isang pangungusap lang ang naiintindihan ko bawa’t limang minuto—dahil ang pelikula ay sining na “visual” at wala nang mas “visual” pa kay Ophuls. Ang kamera ay hindi tumitigil sa paggalaw at pag-ikot: hinahalungkat nito ang kaluluwa ng kanyang mga tauhan.

Noong Linggo ay napanood ko Ang Mga Hikaw Ni Ginang De… na matagal ko nang hinahanap. Nakamamatay sa ganda ang pelikulang ito, na hango sa maikling nobela ni Louise de Vilmorin. Pakiramdam ko’y nabagsakan ako ng piano na nahulog mula sa ikasampung palapag ng gusali. Tulad ng Liham…, ito ay tungkol sa pag-ibig na nakakasira ng bait. Si Comtesse De…(Danielle Darrieux) ang maganda, sosyal, at banidosang asawa ng mayaman at makapangyarihang Heneral De…(Charles Boyer) sa Paris noong ika-19 siglo. Sa umpisa ng kuwento, ipinagbibili ni Comtesse De ang hikaw na brilyanteng korteng-puso na ibinigay sa kanya ng kanyang asawa. Marami siyang utang, dahil nga siya’y banidosa, at hindi niya naman gusto yung hikaw. Ibinenta niya ito sa kanilang suking alahero, at sinabi niya na lamang sa kanyang asawa na nawala ang hikaw.

Nagsumbong ang alahero kay Heneral De. Hindi naman nagalit ang heneral sa pagsisinungaling ng asawa—isa siyang sibilisadong tao, hindi siya nagagalit kahit maraming tagahangang umaaligid kay Comtesse De (bagama’t siya’y naiinis). Binili ulit ni Heneral ang hikaw. Tamang-tama, aalis na papuntang Constantinople ang kanyang kabit. Bilang alaala ng kanilang relasyon, ibinigay ni Heneral De ang hikaw sa kanyang kabit.

Pagdating sa Constantinople, natalo sa sugal ang kabit ng heneral at ipinagbili ang hikaw. Na siya namang binili ng isang diplomatikong Italyano, si Baron Donati (Vittorio De Sica, direktor ng Ang Magnanakaw Ng Bisikleta). Si Baron Donati ay ipinadala sa kanilang embahada sa Paris, kung saan nakilala niya si Comtesse De…At doon nag-umpisa ang kabaliwan. Bagama’t di masasabing nagtaksil ang ginang sa kanyang asawa, hindi maikakaila na iniibig niya ang Italyano. Bilang simbolo ng kanyang pagmamahal, inihandog ni Baron Donati kay Comtesse De. . .ang mga hikaw na ipinagbili niya. At kung hindi niya pinahalagahan ang hikaw noon, ngayo’y ito na ang pinakamahalagang bagay sa kanyang buhay.

At nagkawasak-wasak ang maganda at maayos na buhay ni Comtesse De…

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Isa pang trahedyang nag-umpisa sa alahas: Ang Kuwintas ni Guy De Maupassant. Alam ko na. Isalin natin ang mga kuwento ni Guy De Maupassant sa Tagalog.

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Naisip ko na kung ikaw ay nag-iisip sa wikang Ingles, ang pagsulat sa Tagalog ay parang algebra. Masarap ding mang-asar ng mga kaibigan kong ipinanganak at lumaki sa Maynila nguni’t hindi marunong mag-Tagalog.

 

This is brilliant: A collage of dozens of newspaper front pages (via Boing Boing) the day after the US Election. I didn’t notice if it includes the Philippine Daily Inquirer headline: “Black in the White House”. 

Newspapers usually have a back-up banner in case something else happens (Dewey Defeats Truman being the classic example). If John McCain had won, what might have been the headlines the following day?

Would the Inquirer have gone for “White In The White House”? My options would include: “Same Old, Same Old”, “What a shock”, and “Let’s move to another planet.”

Time for a contest! Compose a front-page headline for a McCain win. Winner gets a copy of Stars and Bars by William Boyd, to be mailed to a Philippine address. The deadline is Thursday. Remember: headlines should be short.

Photo: Obama fist thump from Boston.com

An Open Letter to Barack Obama from Alice Walker (The Color Purple)

“One gathers that your family is large. We are used to seeing men in the White House soon become juiceless and as white-haired as the building; we notice their wives and children looking strained and stressed. They soon have smiles so lacking in joy that they remind us of scissors. This is no way to lead. Nor does your family deserve this fate. . .” Read Alice Walker’s letter.

And because a poetic president needs a foul-mouthed enforcer to make sure the job gets done, a vocabulary lesson from White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.

Washington, D.C. – “Fucknutsville”
Republican – “Knucklefuck”
What his mom fondly calls him – “little shithead”
How he ends phone calls to donors and candidates – “Fuck you. I love you.”
His message to the Republicans after the Democrats took back the House in 2006: “Since my kids are gone, I can say it. They can go fuck themselves!”

Photo: Egyptian antiquities at the Louvre

Two views on the ownership of antiquities:

From a journalist: “Loot is an ugly word. Derived from Hindi and Sanskrit, it emerged in British India, where it no doubt proved useful in describing some of the more sordid transactions of empire. In the 20th century, it was applied to Jewish art collections systematically plundered by Hitler and, later, to electronics pilfered from shop windows during the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Most recently — and perhaps most provocatively — it has been wielded against well-to-do American museums whose pristine specimens of ancient civilizations have with shocking frequency turned out to be contraband. It is this latest application of the term that interests Sharon Waxman in “Loot,” a broad survey of what she calls “the battle over the stolen treasures of the ancient world”. . .” NYT review of Loot.

From the director of the Art Institute of Chicago: “The emotional, ‘national cultural identity’ card played by some proponents of nationalist retentionist cultural property laws is really a strategic, political card,” (James) Cuno writes. “National museums are important instruments in the formation of nationalist narratives; they are used to tell the story of a nation’s past and confirm its present importance. That may be true of national museums, but it is not true of encyclopedic museums, those whose collections comprise representative examples of the world’s artistic legacy.” In other words, the present attempts by nations such as Egypt, Italy, Greece, Mexico, and Cambodia to hold on to their archaeological legacy prevents the acquisition of archaeological artifacts by “great encyclopedic museums,” and this is bad for two reasons: the looting will continue anyway, and the museumgoing public will be denied the sight of inspirational works of art. . .” TNR review of Who Owns Antiquity?: Museums and the Battle Over Our Ancient Heritage