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Our Desirable Residences tour the other week took us to the MacArthur Suite at the Manila Hotel, former residence of the American military adviser to the Philippine Commonwealth, General Douglas MacArthur.

We were shown to the suite by two charming members of the hotel staff. They were wearing these extraordinary floor-length gowns in old rose, with high collars, fitted jackets, leg o’mutton sleeves, lace trimmings, tassels, and pillbox hats. There was something 19th century Russian about the outfit: we could visualize Anna Karenina at the fateful train station in Moscow. We love 19th century Russian novels, but imagine the layered winter outfits would be a little oppressive for our tropical climate.

“What an interesting outfit,” we told the staff. “Is that your uniform?” Yes, she said, it was their new hotel uniform and it came in four versions. “Who designed it?”

“Go-tier,” the staff replied.

“Gaultier!” we screamed in unison, but silently. We were impressed that the Manila Hotel would commission Jean-Paul Gaultier to do the staff uniforms.

“Surely Gaultier knows this is a tropical country,” we said. “He came here to work with Pierre Cardin at Rustan’s in the 70s before he became famous.”

“Maybe he had a Russian hotel client, and their uniforms were sent to the Manila Hotel,” said Rene.

“Or maybe the uniforms were switched, so somewhere in Russia, the staff are freezing to death in tropical outfits.”

“More likely,” said Noel, “we are over-interpreting, so when we hear Go-tier we assume it is Jean-Paul Gaultier.”

“Ha ha ha!” we all laughed. (The next day it occurred to us to ask the hotel PR person who the designer is. “Yes, it’s Gautier,” she said. “Bon Gavino Gautier.”)

The MacArthur Suite used to occupy the entire fifth floor of the Manila Hotel. The hotel was razed in World War II and rebuilt: the current three-bedroom MacArthur Suite is a replica of the general’s apartments. Next door is the Aguinaldo Suite, which is convenient if their ghosts decide to reenact the Philippine-American War.

History question: What is the link between General MacArthur and Philippine cinema? Answer: Dimples Cooper.

Elizabeth (nee Isabel) “Dimples” Cooper was a Fil-Scottish vaudeville performer who became a movie actress and had the first kissing scene in Filipino movies. In the 1930s she became Douglas MacArthur’s mistress—a fact that the general concealed from his mother, who would surely disapprove. Dimples Cooper moved to Washington, D.C. with MacArthur when he became U.S. Army Chief of Staff. There, as the story goes, he established her in an apartment that she couldn’t leave because she had no clothes, only lingerie. According to William Manchester in his MacArthur biography American Caesar, MacArthur “showered (Dimples) with presents and bought her many lacy tea gowns, but no raincoat. She didn’t need one, he told her; her duty lay in bed.”

History is so much more exciting than the lectures we slept through in school.

Yesterday we did our Desirable Old Residences Tour of Metro Manila, conducted by Rene, who has lived in or wanted to live in these buildings. Rene has a bit of a Nora Aunor complex (constantly moving house), and Noel is into interior design. We are generally indifferent to interiors—for years we slept on our couch and had sheets taped to the windows in lieu of curtains—but we enjoy hanging out with our friends.

Our first stop was the large tree-lined compound on F.B. Harrison near Edsa in Pasay, the one with the red gate. We don’t know what it’s called—according to Eric Paras, whose furniture gallery Artelano 11 occupies two houses, it’s referred to as the Chinese compound. The houses are two-storey structures built in the middle of the last century, which is the romantic way of saying “50s, 60s”. When you’re in the compound you forget that you are smack in the middle of urban chaos.

These residences are so desirable that a hotel is reportedly leasing five houses to turn into tourist accommodations.

Look at those machuca tiles. Our Sunday snooping quickly turned into an Xmas shopping expedition. No more wading into the mall for last-minute presents at the peak of the holiday rush hahaha!

This birdcage should be eight feet tall. Then you could hire a naked male model to sit in it, and occasionally pelt him with birdseed.

A-11 has plenty of inexpensive china pieces (A set of 6 saucers for Php300), such as this plate with a spider design. This plate is perfect for that someone you hate but still have to give a present to (co-worker, in-law, etc), who happens to be arachnophobic. Imagine serving them a nice pudding on this plate, watching them enjoy it, and then seeing them freak out as the spider emerges from under the sauce…

“If you hate them, then don’t give them anything,” Juan pointed out later.

“You’re not cooperating!”

Bookends for book lovers and an off-kilter bookshelf for off-kilter book lovers.

These are black mirrors. On May Day Eve, says the story by Nick Joaquin, take a candle and go into a dark room that has a mirror in it. You will see either the man you will marry, or the devil.

Approach the mirror with your candle and say, “Mirror, mirror, show to me him whose woman I will be.” And our hand will shoot out of the mirror and slap you. “You really want to be someone’s property? Gaga!”

The black mirrors are gorgeous but cost more than the crazy bookshelf.

And here’s a great gift for Lino Brocka fans: an old-fashioned flatiron (plantsa). Not only an excellent conversation piece (We don’t know how to iron clothes), but a wonderful prop for reenactments of the climax of Insiang starring Hilda Koronel and Mona Lisa.

Artelano 11 is at 2680 F.B. Harrison St, Pasay City, telephone (02)832.9972, email a_eleven05@yahoo.com.

Next: North Syquia and the MacArthur Suite at Manila Hotel. By the way, if there is anyone living at Rosaria reading this, could you let us into the building? We hear it’s fabulous and we just want to have a look. One does not simply walk into Rosaria, one must be invited, but unlike vampires we promise to exsanguinate no one.

The house in Godard’s Contempt belonged to Curzio Malaparte.

Archicine by Federico Babina in ArchDaily. via Flavorwire.

From the time we saw Brian De Palma’s woefully underrated Femme Fatale in 2002, we have been looking for this piece by Ryuichi Sakamoto. (The movie’s closing credits are no help at all.) Here it is, and of course it’s called Bolerish.

From the moment we read the kiddie version of The Sword in the Stone in the Walt Disney Encyclopedia we have been devoted to The Once and Future King by T.H. White. The epic tetralogy consisting of The Sword in the Stone, The Queen of Air and Darkness, The Ill-Made Knight, and The Candle in the Wind remains one of our favorite books: every time we pick it up, we end up rereading our favorite parts. Wart meeting Merlin and Archimedes in the woods. Wart discovering his true identity. Morgause’s horrible children hunting a unicorn. Everything, basically. It is our gold standard for fantasy. We pity those who have not read it.

Our love for TOAFK has guided many of our choices: we took a Medieval English lit course so we could read White’s sources, we bought Roxy Music’s album Avalon because of its title, and we memorized Monty Python and the Holy Grail, our favorite film of the Arthurian tales (along with John Boorman’s Excalibur. We also like Bresson’s Lancelot du Lac, except that the knights’ brightly-colored tights crack us up. There have been some truly crappy adaptations, like that one with Clive Owen).

Whenever we spot a different edition of TOAFK, we buy it. Unfortunately, our existing copies don’t do justice to White’s masterpiece. They’re too plain, the designs are unimaginative, the typefaces are minuscule. They are simply not worthy.

A Book of Hours at Yale’s Beinecke Library. Photo from the Digital Scriptorium.

An edition of The Once and Future King should look like a medieval Book of Hours, hand-painted by the artists commissioned by the Duc de Berry.

The Meeting of Lancelot and Guinevere in The Romance of Lancelot du Lac. Photo from the British Library.

It must be have illuminated pages, leather bindings, locks.

Gilded-edge page. Photo from Wikipedia.

At the very least, it must have gilded-edge pages.

The Folio Society edition, with engravings by John Lawrence

We googled existing designs of TOAFK and found this one from the Folio Society. It’s bound in cloth and prettier than our copies (This is not difficult to achieve). So we’re probably getting this, but if you spot a more worthy edition, let us know.

Famous fans of TOAFK: Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr.

Our favorite comic book title of the month is Crime-Fighting Call Center Agents. On the basis of the title we would buy the comics, the T-shirt, the lunchbox and accessories. So the fact that the comics by Noel Pascual and AJ Bernardo are hysterically funny would be a bonus if that weren’t the rationale for their existence. The…heroes…of Crime-Fighting Call Center Agents (CFCCA) are actual call center agents but not actually crime-fighters—they just find themselves in dangerously stupid/stupidly dangerous situations and try to survive using their limited wits.

Issue #1, in which the four colleagues are threatened by a psycho biker, is hilarious, but Issues 2 and 3, which constitute an hommage to a recent Pinoy horror movie classic, is brilliant. In its combination of geekiness and idiocy, CFCCA is unrivaled. Consider this bit of dialogue:

– Ngayon na nga lang ako manliligaw, sa pamilya pa ng mga aswang.
– Kaya nga ako, lahat ng gusto kong pormahan, sinasabuyan ko muna accidentally ng holy water.

Or this masterful teaser for a future issue:

Pati ang panel na ito, hindi pa cleared sa teaser na ito. Masyado kasing game-changing, sobrang gandang twist sa istorya, na pag nabasa mo, iisipin mo: “Ano ito! Sobrang astig, parang nagkaka-Stendhal Syndrome na yata ako!”

Tapos pagtingin mo sa relos mo, year 2037 na pala.

Get your own copies. Now. CFCCA is available at Comic Odyssey at Galleria, Planet X at Glorietta 4, Filbar’s at Festival Mall Alabang, Bookay-Ukay at Maginhawa St, UP Village, Chapter IX Books at Circle C Mall QC, and Druid’s Keep at The Fort Strip, Bonifacio Global City. Each issue costs Php75. CFCCA will also be available at the ReaderCon on 7 December at the Rizal Library at Ateneo, and at Better Living Through Xerography at the Lopez Museum on 14 December. Look them up on facebook.

Designer Beruna Girl combines her fan obsessions with her love of typography in handmade notebooks emblazoned with quotes from Sherlock, Game of Thrones, Fringe, J.R.R. Tolkien. The Fandom Jots measure 9.8 x 14 cm, with heavy kraft paper covers and plain white pages. A set of three notebooks costs Php365-456. You can buy them online.

And here’s the new trailer for Sherlock.

What really happened between Sherlock Holmes and the pavement? Has he returned to save Watson from that moustache? Season 3 premieres in the US 19 January 2014; earlier in the UK.

Moleskine Passions are journals for specific obsessions, including Travel, Recipes, Dessert (new),

Books (for making note of the books you’ve read and reminding yourself who you lent them to), and

Cats (medical records, personality quirks, etc).

Buy any journal from the Passions collection (Php1299) at National Bookstores and get a free Moleskine seasonal ornament notecard (regular price: Php320) that you can hang on your tree, door, ceiling, anywhere. The freebie is available till 31 October 2013 at National Bookstore branches and at nationalbookstore.com.

Penguin Drop Caps is a collection of 26 hardcover titles (Php799 each) inspired by typography. The covers in bright colors feature illustrated letters designed by typographer Jessica Hische. That’s A for Austen, Jane; B for Bronte, Charlotte; C for Cather, Willa and so on.