JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

Photo from Busted Racquet

Two weeks ago Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal shared a private jet from Zurich to Madrid, where they played a second exhibition match. Here they are on the plane. They can take a private jet but they don’t have a proper camera? Is that a gift-wrapped box Roger is holding? Why does Rafa look grouchy? Did the flight attendant interrupt a serious conversation? What are they saying in this photograph?

My first movie for 2011: Boogie Nights, written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, starring Mark Wahlberg, Burt Reynolds, Julianne Moore, and one of the greatest ensembles ever. A spectacular way to begin a new year of movie-watching.

I hadn’t seen it in years but remember it fondly—as a serious movie. I saw it again on New Year’s Day, and it’s HILARIOUS!

This is a story of family and art set in the San Fernando Valley, California in the late 70s and early 80s. Except that the family members are not genetically related to each other, and the art happens to be porn movies. Boogie Nights is Paul Thomas Anderson’s second feature film, but he has the confidence and smarts of a veteran. Pure chutzpah. True, having a cast that includes Moore, John C. Reilly, William H. Macy, Philip Baker Hall, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ricky Jay, Heather Graham, Luis Guzman, Don Cheadle helps. The “Martin Scorsese, I can do that too” tracking shots are still impressive, and the recreation of the period so authentic I can feel the braids coming out of my head and smell the horrible colognes of the era, Brut and Jovan.

The pornographers believe that they are making art and the earnestness of their pronouncements (“This is real Italian nylon imported from Italy”) produces the most deadpan comedy. In their world Dirk Diggler is an artist whose talent happens to be fucking. But even as you’re choking with laughter at their delusions, you never get the feeling that PT Anderson is laughing at them. He loves these people—the porn star who loses custody of her kid and becomes a mother to her costars, the black actor forever searching for the right look, the porn director who warns that video will cheapen their art. And we, the audience, care about them.

Anderson excels at scenes that combine the funny and the horrible: Philip Seymour Hoffman’s clueless gay grip trying to kiss Dirk; Dirk and Reed attempting to be rock stars (with a horrific version of the theme from the Transformers cartoon); William H. Macy’s cuckold who keeps walking in on his wife having sex with other men, many other men; Don Cheadle getting caught in a doughnut shop during a robbery.

The action gets more frantic in the coked-up 80s, culminating in that mad sequence. The one where Wahlberg, Reilly and Thomas Jane are selling cocaine to Alfred Molina who’s conducting Sister Christian by Night Ranger (then singing Jessie’s Girl) in his underwear while his Asian boytoy is exploding firecrackers. At the height of the insanity the camera stays on Wahlberg’s face for a full minute and his expression—coked-up, paranoid, nervous and stupid—sums up the era. Brilliant.

The closing montage set to God Only Knows by the Beach Boys, which ends with us beholding the “special thing” we had only seen through the stunned expressions of Dirk’s costars: perfection.

I love you, Paul Thomas Anderson.

I was still wearing my scarf but I wasn’t quite myself this morning.

metamorphosis
noun ( pl. -phoses ) Zoology
(in an insect or amphibian) the process of transformation from an immature form to an adult form in two or more distinct stages.
• a change of the form or nature of a thing or person into a completely different one, by natural or supernatural means : his metamorphosis from presidential candidate to talk-show host.
ORIGIN late Middle English : via Latin from Greek metamorphosis, from metamorphoun ‘transform, change shape.’

The classic classic: Metamorphoses by Ovid.

The modern classic: Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka.

LitWit Challenge 4.3: In 1,000 words, preferably less, write a story in which the protagonist wakes up and finds herself/himself transformed into an animal, plant, or object.

Deadline: Sunday, 9 January 2011 at 12 noon.

The prize:
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Look, A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin and the succeeding volumes are available at National Bookstore branches! Paperback, Php315 each.

The assignment is called “Something Sensational”. Our contestants’ understanding of “sensational” is “something horrible you would read about in a tabloid.”

There is a novel many of you may find interesting: American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis.

#7 angus25. The diary of a young man who just had a penile piercing and is worried that it’s infected. This first entry seems to have set the tone for the rest of the pieces, which are full of lurid sexual escapades involving minors and members of the clergy. The Yucch-meter wonders if these are the thoughts that occupy your minds on regular working days, or if these are holiday treats.

angus25: Hilarious! The protagonist sublimates his sexual anxiety into overeating. The recitation of dishes and the description of the ravenous narrator are particularly effective.

#8 Momelia. Diary of a gay man on the prowl. We are stumped by the phrase, “giving us the finger with his good eye”. The author seems to be going for shock value, but after the initial “Ay!” the sex seems rather cold and mechanical. Afterwards the narrator is more interested in criticizing his own technique than in rating the encounter. Or perhaps that is the point.

#10 lampayatot. This brief tale of a love affair with James Franco was written by Imelda Papin many years ago. We recall the neighbors’ maid singing “Lonis nang tayu’y magkakelala” while hanging the laundry out to dry.
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Saffy wears Happy Socks

Chus my friend and genius hairstylist spent New Year’s Eve on a plane to Los Angeles.

Me: Sana pagbalik mo makatabi mo sa business class si Neil Etheridge. Happy New Year! (I hope that when you fly back you sit in business class next to the goalie of the Azkals national football team.)

Chus: Yes! Sana! May cute na guy sa tapat ko as I text u! Hotness! Oooh! (I hope! As I text there is a cute guy right in front of me.)

Me: Sabihin mo, Excuse me, are you an Azkal? (Ask him if he’s an Azkal.)

Chus: Hahaha! Nagta-Tagalog and his boots are a dead giveaway—is a gay!

Me: Ay Azkla!

On my birthday Chus gave me several pairs of Happy Socks. I love them, they make excellent presents. They would make great boyfriend presents but for something my druid told me years ago. She said, Don’t give shoes, socks, or watches to persons you are romantically-involved with. (Note that she used the plural form, my druid is wise.) If you give them footwear or socks they will walk away from you, and if you give them a watch the relationship will end. (Screw the superstition, it’s the symmetry that gets me, like an ironic foreshadowing.)

So take this Patek Philippe watch away from me! Now! For the last time, I do not want a tourbillon. Haha.

Last week in rings: Cat and mouse ring from Ramon who found it in a bazaar, a ring that changes color but is not a mood ring from Noel who found it in Trilogy.

Photo by Henry Hargreaves in Gothamist.

Wherever you are on this planet we hope that you are warm and safe and Han Solo is on his way to get you.

Happy New Year, readers. If the Mayans are correct and the world will end in 2012, then it’s our last chance to do all the things we’ve been telling ourselves we’re going to do “someday”. Someday may be here, people.

Our Someday List (partial)
1. St. Petersburg, the Sahara, Patagonia, Kilimanjaro, Macchu Picchu, Antarctica
2. The major works of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy (reduced from “all”)
3. Philip Roth (Have only read The Breast)
4. The complete Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O’Brian
5. The Moon