JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

Photo: The Carina Nebula Panorama from NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day archive.

Last night as we were leaving Silk in Serendra we beheld a sight that caused our heads to do the Linda Blair 180-degree spin from The Exorcist.

Seated at a table outside Mamou’s were BB Gandanghari, Gretchen Barretto, and Chavit Singson.

It was mind-bending, like seeing a year’s worth of tabloids take human form and order drinks. In the general stupefaction no one thought to take a picture.

Admittedly fear was a factor. You know what one of them is capable of. Yes, Gretchen is terrifying.

What could they talking about? If there were four of them I’d be worried about the Apocalypse. More likely they were discussing something innocuous like kitchen tiles or sunscreen, but we’d like to think that the lives of the. . .famous are so much more exciting than ours. In this case we are absolutely certain that the lives of the. . .famous are so much more exciting than ours.

I reported this cosmic occurrence to several friends. Bernard-Henri noted that the three of them together is perfect casting for the next movie by the National Artist. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Apat Na Alas Sa Taguig (Oh God, You Must Be Kidding!)

This column was written two days earlier and it appeared online hours before the death was announced. How did I know that Michael Jackson was going to die?

Am I psychic?

Do I know the secrets of the universe?

Do I know when you’re going to die? (Do you seriously want to know?)

Fine, I’ll tell you.

IT’S A COINCIDENCE.

In hindsight it seems obvious, but when I had the overpowering urge to listen to Jackson’s albums I thought it was just some midlife nostalgia trip. Fortunately I’ve just read Leonard Mlodinow’s book on randomness, so I can explain it to myself. Ooh, there’s a column.

So if you want to know the future or to place a curse on someone, you’d be better off consulting one of these.

Aswang (sculpture by Ryan Villamael)

It’s only been 24 hours, but after the media overload we are now tired of hearing about Michael Jackson. Funny how the technology that is supposed to abate boredom really hastens its onset.

Greeting card by Charles Platt, 1994 (found on Boing Boing)

Here’s a tract by a theologian who argues that Santa IS Satan. And it’s not just dyslexia!

It’s not easy to have a rational discussion of new technologies these days. Half the time the conversation may be boiled down into the question, “Where can I get it and how much will it cost?” Inevitably debate arises over whose thing is bigger. Or smaller. Or faster, more convenient to use, or just cooler.

Here is a gadget that is bigger, faster, more complicated, and infinitely cooler than nearly anything. You can’t buy it unless you have eight billion dollars and your basement can accommodate a 27-kilometer circular tunnel. It is the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the humongous atom-smasher at the Cern laboratory in Geneva. The LHC was built to try and answer the question: What is the universe made of, and how did it begin?

The Biggest Gadget Ever, in Emotional Weather Report, today in the Star.

The Large Hadron Collider will be turned on today. Will it help physicists figure out how the universe began, or will it create a black hole and eradicate the earth? The first Global Catastrophic Risks Conference assessed the threat from the particle accelerator, as well as asteroid collisions, gamma ray bursts from supernovas, man-made nanobots replicating out of control, and everything connected to Google “waking up” and taking over the world. According to James Hughes of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, “The argument that I found convincing was that the nature of the risks of the Hadron Collider creating a catastrophe was on the same level at which you’re driving down the road and having your car spontaneously turn into a horse through simple quantum fluctuation.” (That’s great, it starts with an earthquake, birds, snakes and aeroplanes, Lenny Bruce is not afraid.)

It’s the 25th anniversary of the assassination of Senator Ninoy Aquino. “Do you remember where you were when you first heard that Ninoy had been shot?” asked my friend, the Princess Poulet. Yes I do. I remember that it was a weekend and I was at home with my mother. Everyone knew that Senator Aquino was arriving that day, so we expected to see the television coverage. But there was no TV coverage of the homecoming, and as the day wore on it was obvious that something bad had happened. Then there was the news bulletin that he’d been shot, allegedly by a hitman who was identified by the name sewn onto his underwear. 

Poulet’s innocent question quickly turned into a morbid game of Where Were You When. On September 11, 2001, when the first plane hit the tower, I was standing in front of an ATM on Wilson Street in Greenhills. My druid and I had just eaten a big dinner at a Chinese restaurant. She had noted that it was the Coptic New Year. Then as I was withdrawing money from the machine, my druid got a text message saying a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. We thought it was a joke in very bad taste.

I was in front of the ATM at United Supermarket (it’s no longer there) in Greenbelt during the big earthquake of 1991. I had just withdrawn money when the ground began to shake violently, then swirl like the contents of a blender. There were aftershocks for days. I remember watching TV coverage of rescue workers retrieving people from collapsed buildings. One TV reporter shoved a microphone at a girl half-buried in rubble and asked, “How are you feeling?”