On Cats, hardcover at National Bookstores, Php955.
It turns out that Charles Bukowski, the poet of the American lowlife, loved cats, took in many strays, and admired their toughness and no-bullshit ways.
a reader
by Charles Bukowskimy cat shit in my archives
he climbed into my Golden State Sunkist
orange box
and he shit on my poems
my original poems
saved for the university archives.that one-eared fat black critic
he signed me off.
Completed!
The steadily falling ratings of the annual awards telecast reply: No. It doesn’t help that the ceremony is full of flat jokes and corny musical numbers, everyone talks too much, and our bets never win. The red carpet coverage is boring because everyone is styled to within an inch of their lives so we can’t laugh at the tacky celebrities. And there’s zero suspense because there are too many awards handed out before the Oscars so we already know who’s going to win.
Cher in Bob Mackie outfits and Bjork in a swan farm should be required to attend every year. All the nominees should be required to pick their own clothes, that would be a spectacle. Maybe the Academy should hire Steve Harvey to host the show and give Best Picture to the wrong movie. That would really perk up viewer interest—everyone would start talking about the Oscars again, which hasn’t happened in many years.
That said, we still take note of who the nominees are so we can pick the ones to root for, and then agonize at the bizarre choices of the voters. The Artist? Really? Charming movie, love Uggie the dog, but would it still work if the characters spoke? Yes, we now follow the Oscars in order to see how wrong they are. This year the nominees are:
Each day we are deluged with spam, which sounds like meatloaf is falling from the sky. If only meatloaf were falling from the sky, preferably not in cans because that would cause mass concussions and property damage. We mean texts, emails, messages from strangers with designs upon our money.
Some of them are only annoying—real estate offers, no-collateral loans, etc—and easy enough to delete, unless they have the nerve to call you when you’re busy, in which case you are within your rights to yell at them.
Some of them are pathetic little scams aimed at robbing you of 300 pesos. They tell you that you’ve been sent MMS and in order to get it you have to reply by to a certain number with a prefix. It’s a trick to make you send money (pasa-load) to the conmen.
Some of them are messages purportedly from your friends or relatives who have been mugged and left stranded in foreign countries.
Some claim to have stolen large sums of money from their governments, and need friendly bank accounts to hide the money in. Resist the urge to tell them to go fuck themselves—why should they have any fun?
Some claim that you are entitled to something you never signed up for, and if you actually turn up to claim it, reveal that you have to pay. Other spammers prey on the credulous, the uninformed and the greedy, but these are particularly scuzzy because they take advantage of people’s real needs.
Got any scam stories? In the meantime, here’s a guy who’s done what we’ve always wanted to do: reply to spam and string the spammer along. His book wrote itself.
Jessica Zafra’s Writing Boot Camp is a series of workshops held every quarter at the Ayala Museum. The first workshop, How To Write Movie Reviews, will be held on February 18 and 25 from 6.30 to 8.30pm. It consists of discussions, brief screenings, and quick writing exercises. Reading assignments and the viewing assignment (one movie, a fun one) are given out upon registration. Coffee and snacks are served throughout the sessions. Writing materials are provided. There is one 750-word writing assignment, to be completed on your own time, which should take two hours or less. The fee is Php5,500.
Register now by emailing education@ayalamuseum.org, calling (02) 759 8288, visiting the Ayala Museum Facebook page or inquiring at the museum front desk.
In Anthony Minghella’s Truly, Madly, Deeply, Alan Rickman plays a dead cellist who reappears in his girlfriend Juliet Stevenson’s apartment, summoned back by her boundless grief. This was the second movie we saw him in; the first, of course, was Die Hard. Alan Rickman, you are welcome to haunt our houses any time. Thank you.
EVERYONE thinks they’re the hero of their own story. History is made up of all their stories bumping up against each other. How do you make sense of this chaos? What does it all mean? Does it mean anything? (No, says Albert Camus, from a paperback that a teenage clerk is reading, existence is absurd. “I don’t know who that is, but I’m guessing he doesn’t have a six-year-old girl,” retorts Betsy the cancer-stricken housewife.) At best we can tease out a pattern of actions and consequences, then impose a beginning and an end to create narrative cohesion. But you need time and distance in order to do this. What if you’re inside the story as it’s happening?
In the amazing second season of Noah Hawley’s Fargo, the characters can be too engrossed with composing their own stories to see the bigger story of America, or the even bigger story of the universe. There are UFOs in this season, because in 1979 they were all over the place, and because they fit in this series. Fargo 2 is so enthralling that after the initial “Holy crap, UFOs!” you just accept that they’re there, turning up at odd moments like cinematography aids.
Read our column on Fargo season 2 in The Binge.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>More
