Archive for March, 2013
This week in earrings
Made by a little old lady selling needlepoint items outside an archaeological site in Turkey. They’re like embroidery that escaped the cloth.
Bought these at the shop in front of the Sultanhani caravanserai along with a cookbook for Ige and an ornate fake dagger with faker gems on the pommel.
At a mall in Nevsehir all the costume jewelry was on sale. This was the only pair I liked that wouldn’t rip off my earlobes.
From ac632 at Greenbelt 5.
Tagalog gaffe in Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master
In The Master, Joaquin Phoenix plays an ex-navy man with post-traumatic stress disorder who falls in with a cult leader (Philip Seymour Hoffman) who may or may not be based on L. Ron Hubbard of Scientology. It’s an amazing, puzzling movie and Joaquin Phoenix’s approach to his role is the opposite of Daniel Day-Lewis’s in Lincoln. Whereas DDL appears to be in control of everything, including his pores and facial hair, Joaquin doesn’t seem to know what Joaquin is doing—he keeps surprising himself. Where is it coming from? He must be hell to direct but the result is beautiful and terrifying. More on the The Master later.
Noel pointed out the early scene, set in Hawaii, in which Joaquin’s character is drinking his homemade brew with some Pinoys. Tagalog is spoken in the background. Someone sings Dahil Sa ‘Yo, and its composer who, funnily enough, shares the name of the leader of the religious group El Shaddai, Mike Velarde. All is well, until you hear this bit of off-camera dialogue:
“Katabi siya ng artista.” (He’s beside the movie star.)
The artista being Joaquin Phoenix. Apparently the extras were so thrilled to be in the movie, they talked about it during a take, and no one in the editing room could understand Tagalog, tsk tsk.
Habemus Papa
Since everyone was watching the Sistine Chapel chimney, a seagull decided to bask in the attention.
As white smoke wafted out of the most-watched chimney on the planet, signifying the election of a new pontiff, our gay friend wished he could make like the Vatican someday and announce, “Habemus papa.”
Get a leg up.
The legs are among the most overworked parts of the body, but they also get the least care. Bad enough that they bear your weight or cover long distances every single day, but they’re also subjected to such tortures as poorly-made shoes with ridiculously high heels. And yet today’s fashions require that your legs look great in tiny shorts (Appointment with gynecologist?) and 6-inch heels. How your legs actually feel is beside the point; one must suffer for beauty.
At the launch of the anti-varicose vein supplement Antistax, it was noted that many women (and men too, we guess) experience leg pains, heaviness (pangangalay), swelling (pagmamanas), cramps and varicose veins, but don’t consider them serious enough to consult a doctor. (We’ll spare you the gross photos.) Leg problems won’t kill you, so they are dismissed as aesthetic rather than functional concerns. However, these pains may be symptoms of chronic venous insufficiency, in which weak and damaged legs cannot pump blood back to the heart. This supplement contains flavonoids from red vine leaf extracts, which improve blood circulation in the legs.
The leg experts offered the following tips for the care and maintenance of healthy legs:
1. Move. Standing still: not good.
2. Bathe your legs in cold water. (Like ice baths for athletes.)
3. Elevate your legs. In the office, put them up on a footstool; at home, prop them up on pillows.
4. Don’t cross your legs for extended periods.
5. Avoid excessive heat. (Plunging them in very hot water: not good.)
6. Avoid high heels.
7. Wear loose, flowing clothes for easy movement.
8. Eat a balanced diet with enough fiber.
Got questions about leg health? Post them in Comments and we’ll forward them to the Antistax team.
Reader review: A plodding quasi-historical mess
Our volunteer reader gamboagan reviews The Stockholm Octavo by Karen Engelmann.
The Stockholm Octavo is available at National Bookstores.
If you have torn through thrillers written by Umberto Eco and Katherine Neville, The Stockholm Octavo may come across as an unfortunate mess held up by its quasi-historical backdrop. It involves a divine card game that can bring you your heart’s desire, or leave you in ruins. What is at stake for Emil Larsson is the fate of his native Sweden at the turn of the 18th century. A customs officer who has clawed his way up to his position by taking advantage of fortuitous events, his cushy job is threatened when a senior officer declares that he must be wed.
Seeking solace at his favorite gambling den, he consults the local oracle, Mrs. Sofia Sparrow, who uses an unusual deck of cards, the Octavo, to tell fortunes. Over several days, she identifies eight personalities who are significant to Larsson. To win, he must gather his winning hand and play it well. However, since the book spends most of its time speculating on how relevant each character is to Larsson, the reader is caught between making his own conjectures about the true eight of this Octavo. Larsson and Sparrow discover that they share the same elements in their Octavos, in the same way everyone’s lives are intertwined and affect one another. It is all an authorial ruse to see Larsson married to his true love and for Mrs. Sparrow to ensure that the kings of France and Sweden keep their heads.
It requires great amounts of patience and coffee to finish this book, which does plod at times. Occasionally it attempts to bring in the esoteric woo-woo factor by mentioning aspects of the enneagram, the belief in eight as a lucky number and symbol of the fates. Engelmann tries too hard to be clever: at one point she goes into how everyone’s Octavo interacts with everyone else’s, like tiles in a grand mosaic. The story throws in a bit about the ingenious use of fans as tools of seduction and assassination.
The saving grace here is Engelmann’s talent for fleshing out characters, even though her plots are barely there and may leave the reader scratching her head at the holes. Other, more talented writers have essayed novels with complex plots and made them worth reading or even re-reading. This is a book that may leave you feeling like you’ve been abducted by aliens and violated: you know time has passed, you don’t remember much, you see The Stockholm Octavo and know you have far more engaging fare to spend your time with.
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