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Between this and the annual best list, this is probably the most attention Filipino cinema has ever gotten in the venerable magazine. Well-played, everyone.

From left: Francine Medina Marquez, Stella Arnaldo, us, and Edd Fuentes. Photo from Stella’s Instagram.

At lunch yesterday our media friends brought us up to date on stuff that transpired while we were sleeping and whose ass we should go Ramsay Snow—Bolton now that he’s been legitimized–on. Tsk, tsk. Our blades are sharp. As they say at the Dreadfort, A naked man has few secrets, a flayed man none.

We know nothing about the teams battling it out in the football World Cup (except that the Italian, Spanish and Croatian teams look fabulous). But when we heard that Spain, which had lost to the Netherlands 1-5 (Was Iker asleep?), was up against Chile, we decided we were rooting for Chile. Because Pedro Pascal who played the Red Viper Oberyn Martell of Dorne is Chilean! And used his father’s accent in the role (He himself has lived in New York for ages). The Red Viper did not make much of an impression on us when we read A Song of Ice and Fire, but with Pascal in the role (and Benioff-Weiss speeding up the story), whoa!

And Chile kicked defending champion Spain out of the World Cup, 2-0. As Butch texted: Spain eliminated on Rizal’s birthday. Venganza!

Which reminded us that today is Jose Rizal’s birthday. Yikes, we had forgotten. Why is it that we mark his death rather than his birth?

What do the Red Viper and our national hero have in common? Venganza! Oberyn Martell did it through mortal combat with The Mountain (Finish him off now! Get away from that–oh yucch), Rizal’s mysterious Simoun planned to do it with some nitroglycerine in a lamp shaped like a pomegranate.

This being Jose Rizal’s birthday, we looked up the list of the books he owned in Under Three Flags: Anarchism and the Colonial Imagination by Benedict Anderson. The library that Rizal brought back from Europe included books by the following authors.

French:
Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand (Was the steak named after him?)
Alphonse Daudet
Alexandre Dumas pere (5) – Of course, El Filibusterismo being heavily inspired by the revenge classic The Count of Monte Cristo.
Victor Hugo – Everyone read Les Miserables; today everyone sings the songs.
Alain-Rene Lesage
Eugene Sue (10), author of sensational novels that dealt with social ills
Voltaire
Emile Zola (4)

English:
Edward Bulwer-Lytton of “It was a dark and stormy night” infamy
Daniel Defoe – Robinson Crusoe?
Charles Dickens – Of course, but which one.
William Makepeace Thackeray – Vanity Fair, we suppose.

German:
Goethe
E.T.A. Hoffman – Fantasy and horror author

Italian:
Alessandro Manzoni – I promessi sposi

Dutch:
Douwes Dekker

Spanish:
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra – Don Quixote, we presume.

Anderson points out that these authors had been mentioned in Rizal’s letters: (Hans Christian) Andersen, (Honore de) Balzac, Johann Peter Hebel, and (Jonathan) Swift. Rizal also had access to the library of Trinidad Pardo de Tavera, in whose house in Paris he had been a guest for several months.

Drogon believes good posture is essential to reading Russian novels.

1. A Philosophical Murder

2. A Washerwoman Is Insulted

3. The Student’s Emotional Isolation Is Complete

4. The Estate Is Sold Off

5. Uuuuuughhhh

6. An Argument That Is Mostly In French

7. It’s Very Cold Out And Love Does Not Exist Also

8. The Nihilist Buffs His Fingernails While Society Crumbles

9. There Is No God

10. 400 Pages Of A Single Aristocratic Family’s Slow, Alcoholic Decline

11. Is This A Dinner Party Or Is This Hell?

Read on at The Toast.

Our new books The Stories So Far (fiction) and Geeks Vs Jocks (non-fiction) are available only in hardcover (Php399 for each, P699 the pair), only online at library-of-babel.com. But we’re having a series of pop-up book sales and signings starting this Saturday, 21 June, 2-3pm at Cibo on the second floor of Greenbelt 5, Ayala Center, Makati. You can buy the books right there and have them signed.

Other pop-up sales and signings (to be confirmed)

Saturday, 28 June, 2-3pm at Cibo in Shangri-La Plaza
Saturday, 5 July, 2-3pm at Cibo in Power Plant Mall, Rockwell

See you there! If Drogon behaves (sometimes he gets too excited) we might bring him for photo-ops, since he like being photographed much more than we do.

If your school or company would like to invite us for a talk/reading/signing, email Brewhuh at angelagenevieve@gmail.com.

Norte, The End of History opens in New York on June 20 at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Get your tickets here. The pop-up screenings at theatres in Metro Manila and other cities will resume very soon.

Norte, Hangganan Ng Kasaysayan has won the Gawad Urian for Best Picture, Best Screenplay (Lav Diaz and Rody Vera), Best Cinematography (Larry Manda) and Best Actress (Angeli Bayani in a very, very strong field that included the Nora Aunor and the Vilma Santos!).

We caught the first half of the awards night and were the designated accepter if it won for Best Picture, but we asked the fabulous Maya Q to give the acceptance speech instead because there was the very real possibility that we would trip when we went up the stage of the Dolphy Theatre at ABS-CBN. Not because of brain fever, but because we are a terrible klutz in our “normal” state. Then halfway through the brisk, no-nonsense awards we got very sleepy because the virus has rebooted our system and now we sleep and wake up early (and eat only during mealtimes. The virus has turned us into a normal human being! Aaaaaaaa!).

The awards we managed to catch:

Angel Aquino was nominated twice for Best Supporting Actress for Ang Huling Cha-Cha ni Anita and Porno. Fortunately despite having the vote split she still took home her first Urian trophy for Cha-Cha.

Jun Jun Quintana won for Best Supporting Actor in A Philippino Story, overcoming tough competition from Joey Marquez in OTJ and Archie Alemania in Norte. The presentors were fellow Best Actor nominees Mimi Juareza (Quick Change) and Alex Medina (Babagwa). Mimi explained why she is nominated for Actor, not Actress: if you saw Quick Change, you know that she is still…attached to maleness.

Zig Dulay was quite overcome by his victory for Best Short for Missing,

And Nanay Mameng was her badass self when she pointed out that she’s didn’t know what she was doing in the Urian when all she’s ever wanted is to help the oppressed.

Chuck Gutierrez won the Best Editing prize for Riddles of My Homecoming.

The Gawad Urian ceremony was hosted by Piolo Pascual, Bianca Gonzales, Butch Francisco and Ai-Ai de las Alas, who said she would star in an indie version of Tanging Ina in which she would give birth in close-up to each of her twelve children.