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* Meaning it is the 88th movie I’ve seen this year. I am up to 98, the most recent being Moon by Duncan Jones (son of David Bowie who sang Space Oddity, so there’s a symmetry there). Each movie is counted only once, and the favorite movies I watch all the time can only be counted once a year. I also make a list of all the books I’ve read. I do not have daily routines (Wake up at 7, Office at 9, etc) so I make lists instead.

I’ve never been a ghost writer. Apparently there are two things against me: one, I sound too much like myself; two, I am “too opinionated” (their exact words) and cannot be trusted to write something I don’t agree with (Dammit, not even the slightest whiff of an offer to go over to the dark side). Which is probably just as well because “ghost writer” is a scary title—nonexistence does not appeal to me.

In The Ghost Writer, Roman Polanski’s adaptation of Robert Harris’s bestselling novel The Ghost, our lovely Ewan MacGregor is a writer who does other people’s autobiographies. His character doesn’t have a name, he is always referred to as ‘The Ghost’. The Ghost is hired to work on the memoirs of former British Prime Minister Adam Lang—the manuscript has been written but it’s bland and needs to be overhauled in one month. The previous ghostwriter has become a literal ghost—he was found drowned on the beach on Martha’s Vineyard, an apparent suicide, near the house where Lang and his staff are staying.

Our protagonist gets to work in that same house on Martha’s Vineyard, a modernist affair that’s all glass and angles, and as gray as the frozen landscape. Also in the house are Lang’s angry, brilliant wife (Olivia Williams, who specializes in intelligent women), his assistant (Kim Catrall, who can only play one role: Samantha), and the rest of the staff. The manuscript, which cannot be taken out of the room, is even duller than The Ghost had expected, so he starts doing some research of his own. The stuff he turns up provides the meat of the story.

When Harris’s novel came out critics quickly leapt on the parallels between Adam Lang and Tony Blair. Like Blair, Lang supported the invasion of Iraq, and as the story progresses he is charged with having turned over terror suspects to the CIA for torture. Pierce Brosnan gives the best performance of his career as Adam Lang: he is charming, calculating, and like all men used to power, he cannot stand having his motives questioned.

The Ghost snoops around the island, where he gleans interesting bits of information from a native (Eli Wallach) and an old associate of Lang’s (Tom Wilkinson). At first he seems to be in no real danger, but you know that something bad is coming, and you can hear Polanski gleefully tightening the noose. The Ghost Writer is the work of a master having fun.

It’s not strictly a thriller—no strange noises in the night or bursts of violence—but an intellectual puzzle for grown-ups. Was the first ghost a suicide? What did he know? Why is the wife so bitter? Why is Catrall always smirking? (Nope, that’s just bad acting.)

The main puzzle of course is, Why did Tony Blair Adam Lang always act in the best interests of the Americans? And who is the real Ghost?

Roman Polanski’s The Ghost Writer opens at Greenbelt 3 and Glorietta today, August 4.

Everything is on sale at Powerbooks and National Bookstores. Twenty percent off on these, and up to 80 off on books in the bins.

The Story. In the late 18th century young Jacob de Zoet travels to the Shogunate of Japan to make his fortune so he can go back to the Netherlands and marry the girl he loves. His job at the Dutch East Indies Company is to uncover corruption in the ranks; he uncovers it all right, to his great disadvantage. Contact between foreigners and Japanese is largely proscribed, but Jacob goes and falls in love with Orito Aibagawa, a woman who has been granted permission to study medicine. Then Orito’s father dies and Orito is sent off to a convent run by the Abbot Enomoto, who is believed to have supernatural powers courtesy of the weird rituals practised in the remote convent. Terrible things happen, but also wondrous things; the characters never do what you expect them to, preferring to behave as if they were walking, breathing individuals; there is more life and humanity in these 469 pages than in ten seasons of telenovelas, except that it requires you to think. (In hardcover)

England in the 1970s. Four children, the eldest in their teens, live with their ailing mother. They worry that if she dies, they will be separated and sent off to foster homes. So when she dies, they keep it a secret. They pretend she is still with them, but cracks begin to appear in the adolescents’ behavior, in their relationships with each other, and in a certain trunk full of cement down in the basement. “Disturbing” is only the beginning. Not for the fragile or squeamish. Pop factoid: The title of Madonna’s song “What it feels like for a girl” is a quote from the film adaptation of Cement Garden.

Another one from the historical-literary-monster genre. Haven’t read it, but Henry VIII seems like a good candidate for werewolf.

Best purchase:

P579 at the bins in National Bookstore. Some digging required. The book includes the most famous photographs from Life Magazine, with prints ready for framing.

So you can hang them on your wall and refer to them as “My uncles Jack and Bobby”.

You will need

Paper dolls
3 or 4 gay or female friends
Nothing to do

Like many little girls I loved playing with paper dolls. I would expand their wardrobes with my own crude designs—I’ve always been partial to capes, armor-like shirtwaists and long coats that could carry a sword. Do kids still play with paper dolls? There are many websites that let you mix and match outfits, but there’s nothing like drawing designs on paper and cutting them out with tabs so they can be attached to the 2D mannequins.

Last Saturday while we were sitting around having coffee I took out the book of paper dolls that I bought for James and keep forgetting to hand over. (Maybe because I really don’t want to part with it.)

I haven’t seen these paper dolls in local bookstores, only Disney princess paper dolls and “beauty queen” paper dolls with fugly clothes. Dover publishes paper doll books with designs from the 1920s-1990s, the Belle Epoque, the Medieval and Victorian eras, etc; their website is here.

We started playing “Which One Is You?”, a game which usually involves going into a store and picking out an outfit or accessory. This time we passed the book around and each one chose the dress that was most herself/himself.

To make the game more complicated we also chose the dresses that we thought the others would choose for themselves, then the dresses we considered appropriate for them, then the dresses we guessed they would choose for us, then the dresses we thought they thought we’d choose for them. Because there is no game so simple that we can’t give ourselves headaches while playing it.

Big Bird chose this for himself: a short flowery muu-muu. Also, he liked the pose.

Ernie approved of this concept: peasant couture.

Bert went for the architectural.

And everybody knew which one I’d chosen.

It is not floral chiffon.

Soon to be reissued with English text: Take Ivy, a book of photographs that is also an ethnographic study of Ivy League campuses in 1965.

The book was commissioned by Kenzuke Inshizu, who founded an Ivy-inspired clothing line called Van Jacket.

So the preppy uniform gave rise to a passionate Japanese fashion cult.

Clearly preppy never changes. These photos could’ve been taken today, though not necessarily on Ivy campuses. We still see the influence of Prep on contemporary Japanese design.

I have the strange urge to turn up my collar and wear topsiders. Thanks to Tennis Mike for telling me about the book.

Is it August already? Then it’s time to launch the third cycle of LitWit Challenges, brought to you by our generous friends at National Book Store.

This week your LitWit Challenge is this.

“Huh?” you exhale, squinting at the screen, “What is that?”

Why, it is a staircase. Not just any staircase, but the setting of the story you are writing for LitWit Challenge 3.1.

Your assignment is to write a story in 1,000 words or less that takes place on this staircase (You may ignore the sign). The story can be of any genre—mystery, thriller, romance, horror, comedy, historical drama, anything. It can be in prose, free verse, rhyming couplets or iambic pentameter. Its characters may be human, feline, extraterrestrial, alive, or dead. In short you have total freedom (except for the setting and the word count) and few tasks are more paralyzing than whipping up a story with no guidelines (other than the 1,000-word maximum, which will be enforced on pain of death/disqualification).

Post your entry/entries (We accept multiple submissions) in Comments. We will accept your stories until Sunday, 8 August 2010. The winner will receive this set of books:

The Man In The Yellow Doublet, a Captain Alatriste swashbuckler by Arturo Perez-Reverte
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, a.k.a. the novel upon which Blade Runner was based, by Philip K. Dick, and
The Global Warming Survival Handbook by David de Rothschild.

These should take care of your reading requirements for at least a week (though the Reverte is like hot buttered popcorn).

Go. The Weekly LitWit Challenge is brought to you by National Book Store.

* * * * *

Speaking of staircases here’s a good rewrite: Christopher Nolan’s Implementation.

* * * * *
First entry: Marilou’s tale of senatorial shenanigans. And we’re off!

The next morning after breakfast we resumed our tour of the Norwegian Epic. A thorough tour of the ship and all its facilities would take about a week; we had 36 hours.

The Epic has all the facilities and conveniences known to woman and man, including a barbershop/beauty salon. The portraits hanging on the wall are of people whose hairstyles have not walked the earth since the 1970s, so I’m hoping they are there for atmosphere and not as samples of the staff’s aesthetic handiwork.

According to the website the Mandara Spa aboard the Epic is the biggest spa at sea. I believe it. It is certainly bigger than any spa I’ve seen on land.

The Spa Staterooms have private access to the Mandara Spa so you could spend the entire cruise getting massages, facials, the whole range of treatments. You might not want to get off the ship at all.

We tend to think as cruises as something seniors do after they’ve retired, but in recent years more and more families and people in their 20s to 40s have taken to cruising as a convenient and comparatively stress-free vacation option. The Epic has a partnership with Nickoledeon so there are all sorts of activities and entertainments to keep your spawn brats offspring occupied while you de-stress. Think about it: you only pack once, you get to visit a lot more places without having to book connecting flights, you don’t have to plan for meals because there are two dozen restaurants of various culinary persuasions on board, and everything’s included in your fare.

You like going to the spa? You can live in the spa. And if you’re too lazy to traverse those few meters between your Spa Stateroom and the Mandara Spa, look what’s in the corner of your suite.

Your own jacuzzi.

The Norwegian Epic offers “freestyle cruising”, meaning you can choose from a boggling assortment of restaurants and cuisines—Asian fusion, French gourmet, classic Italian, Tex-Mex, American steaks, Brazilian churrasco, and more—and you can dress up or dress down as you wish. Of course if you like those old Hollywood movies (An Affair To Remember? Now Voyager? Titanic?) you will want to dress for dinner.

We had lunch at Teppanyaki, the excellent Japanese grill, then dessert at La Cucina.

If you have breakfast, lunch and dinner at a different restaurant every day, it will take you a week to try all of the Norwegian Epic’s dining outlets. Boredom is forbidden on this cruise.

The Lounge