Buy it at once!
We won’t print an extract lest some prudes wander onto this site and have nervous breakdowns. But we recommend it energetically. Nicholson Baker (Vox, The Fermata) has managed the nearly impossible: sex scenes that are both graphic and wholesome. Yes, wholesome.
House of Holes is available at National Bookstores, hardcover, P995 (with a 20 percent discount during the Cut Price Book Sale so go now).
Dear Auntie Janey,
There seems to be a scarcity in the number of straight males who ask you for advice so let me reverse this trend.
I am 27, currently between jobs, waiting for my certificate of registration in a career that involves the ill, the dying, and the walking dead. As far as I can remember I have never ever been close to getting into a relationship. My high school and early college years are accounted for, I was into Star Trek (particularly Deep Space Nine), Douglas Adams, and Dungeons & Dragons (having been the DM of a cabal in Diliman). I know how girl-repellent these can be. And, no, no matter how hard cosplaying girls pretend to be geeks, there is just something odd about their brand of fanaticism. It is like staring at the Uncanny Valley, there is just something off. As for those female true believers, all of the ones I have met are taken.
Of course, the other thing that probably marked me as someone to be avoided when it comes to intimacy was my foolish habit of writing “poems” to girls I am attracted to. Those were painfully misguided years. I have done enough penance.
The closest I can say I ever got to having a girlfriend was during the closing days of my undergraduate years. At the time I met someone in an elective class who had the same taste in books and, generally, the same interests. In the few months or so that we knew each other, we had a friendship that can only be described as tempestuous. We would be revealing secrets one day, then the next day completely ignoring and not talking to each other and then back to talking. It was a cycle. This went on for months after graduation when our paths diverged as I continued studying while she started working. Then we had a huge fight. I will be honest enough and confess that I started it because I was exhausted with my efforts at trying to chase her when it was clear in her head that she could never see me as more than a friend.
We have reconciled since then, but as with such reconciliations, things could never go back to the way they once were. During the process of catching up, I discovered that the whole time she and I were talking about leo@fergusrules.com, acceptable breaks in reality, and friendship in the age of Friendster (this was half a decade ago) she had been seeing men who can only be described as bastards, assholes, and deadbeats, whose career plans were either non-existent or were limited to whatever handouts their parents gave them. The worst part of my rejection: finding out that she had chosen someone who had a history of violence against his girlfriend over me.
My story does not end there. I am currently infatuated with a former colleague, which I find a bit tiresome because years earlier when I had obliquely admitted I had feelings for her, she struck me down by telling me straight out via text message that she was not interested. In spite of this, I never really lost my attraction.
It is traditional that in this kind of letter one has to point out how normal or even superior the letter-writer is to the general population in order to make the lack of significant other a total mystery. So I will just state plainly that I bathe twice a day, brush my teeth regularly, have no facial deformities, and, in spite of being temporarily jobless, I consider myself a responsible person and I do my job well.
I point this out because in my line of work I’ve met women who have incurred physical injuries from assaults by other women after some Casanova in their barangay became reckless in his two-timing; women who have had children (averaging at about 4) with men who were already married; and women who swallowed 20 tablets of acetaminophen or ingested warfarin over men who did not love them back.
So this is where I not only ask the question why I do not have a girlfriend, I also ask why are there so many deadbeats, men without any ambition or future to speak, of who have women jumping all over them.
The usual answer to the first question does not apply. I am and always will have eyes only for women. And, no, this question does not bother me enough to cause me distress, at least not anymore. I would just like to have your input regarding these mysteries.
Sincerely,
27 and (Still) Single Since Birth
Jane Campion’s The Piano: Good girl Holly Hunter falls for (literally) dirty bad boy Harvey Keitel, gets fingers chopped off by stern boring husband Sam Neill.
Chus, Leo and I went to the artist Lee Paje’s solo show Mater Potestatem at Tin-Aw Gallery.
The exhibit features images of female archetypes—Delilah, Lilith, the Magdalene and others—painted on androgynous bust silhouettes,
Edible sculptures called Sanctus Cunnus—liqueur (tapuy)-filled chocolates that the visitors can eat,
and the Para Series, oil on relief sculptures done in collaboration with Abril Valdemoro. Yes, they are stylized female orifices. (Female iconography figures in the works of many artists including Agnes Arellano, who has made sculptures of genitalia, and Georgia O’Keefe’s flower photographs.)
We liked Manang Magda in particular.
Chus noted the scent in the gallery—lemony fresh, like some feminine hygiene product. “Smell-o-vision!” he said. “Clever!”
“Actually it’s our floorwax,” said the gallery owner. Haha!
“I love this show!” I declared. “Chus, we must reply to this show with the male version. You know—anthuriums, bratwurst, and of course, sculptures cast from real life.”
Then we would get banned and infamous.
Tin-Aw Art Gallery is on the upper ground floor of Somerset Olympia Makati (across from Old Swiss Inn), Makati Avenue beside the Manila Pen, Makati. Gallery hours: Monday to Saturday, 10am to 6pm. Telephone (02) 892.7522. Visit www.tin-aw.com.
Billboards, Los Angeles, 2019. From Blade Runner.
Rush hour traffic northbound on Edsa Guadalupe, 1 July 2011
1. “ . . .”
“OMG.”
“WTF!”
2. “They’re so. . .they’re so. . .naked. I mean technically they’re not naked because they’re wearing little briefs but the tiny scraps actually call attention to what’s under them so they couldn’t be more naked.”
3. “It’s a sign. I’m breaking off my engagement to Ursula, whom I only proposed to at the insistence of my parents, to be with the one I truly love: Facundo.”
4. “You can get those pecs and abs by sniffing glue??”
5. “Stop this train! Stop it! Where is the emergency cord? Mama, para!”
“I’ve. . .seen things. . .you people wouldn’t. . .believe. Attack ships. . .on fire. . .off the shoulder of Orion.”
Read my column at interaksyon.com.
Meanwhile, The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie from the Red Hot Chili Peppers album I’m With You, out 30 August.
BAKLAVA? Photo from Time Out Sydney.
We were doing annual maintenance checks on our Gaydars, the built-in sensors that tell us whether a guy is straight or gay. These are sophisticated apps that automatically react to the presence of males: dead silence for heterosexuals (which occasionally triggers the Hot Guy in the Building alarm), blips of varying loudness for disorientating orientations (“Did someone order the baklava?”), and air raid sirens that mean, “Sweetie, let’s go shopping in the girls’ lingerie department!!” (Heartbreaking when their cup size is bigger than yours.)
This app is not downloadable. It can only be developed after years of hanging out with gay men, discussing Madonna’s career trajectory with them, denouncing all Academy Awardees for Best Actress who are not Meryl Streep (except Marion Cotillard, long story), and analyzing their relationship histories (exponentially more exciting than mine). Recently I realized that I can name the stars of UFC even if I know nothing about the sport. This is because my friend and I sometimes have dinner at the bar near his house, where the TV is always tuned to UFC matches. As we cannot critique the production design, cinematography or musical score of the fights our discussion is limited to “Okay, which one is yours?”
Read the full Emotional Weather Report today in the Philippine Star.
Photo by Rickyv
Justin and Harry were staying at a hotel near Makati Avenue. My all-knowing friend and personal travel agent Kermit booked it for them. Patrice was expected at a friend’s house, but decided to crash in their room for the night.
When I rang the bell the next day Patrice opened the door. “Allo, did you sleep well?” I asked.
“They make me sleep on the floor,” Patrice said solemnly.
“No we didn’t, we said he could sleep on the bed!!!”
“Right there, see?” Patrice pointed to the rug between the twin beds.
“You horrible people, how could you make the child sleep on the floor?”
“No we didn’t! He’s making it up!”
This is the chaos I walked into.
Harry rooted among the boxes and proceeded to eat leftover pizza. “Pizza’s great in the morning,” he shrugged. Then he drank the warm, soupy remains of a milkshake. “That’s disgusting,” Justin said. I felt like Dian Fossey in Gorillas in the Mist.
“When you’re decent you can take me to lunch at Rockwell,” I said. “What am I saying, let’s go.”
Justin
Justin wanted to buy those shoes that look like gloves. Apparently they cost twice as much where he lives. Then they went to all the sporting goods stores but couldn’t find shoes in their sizes.
Harry and Patrice
We had lunch where I always have lunch: Wild Ginger. Adobo, kare-kare, and Patrice wanted sinigang. Tennis Mike turned up and said lunch was on him. Thanks, Mike.
While we waited for our orders to arrive Harry and Justin taught Patrice how to make his man-boobs move.
Patrice and Justin.
Some of my friends walked by, including James who made the earrings I was wearing. “All my friends are gay,” I pointed out.
“Really,” Justin said, “We hadn’t noticed. But you’re not—”
“You like guys, right?” Harry said.
“Of course I like guys. But I’m practically a guy.”
“Are you thinking of sex right now?”
“I’m not saying.”
“Then you’re not a guy,” Harry concluded. “What does Adidas mean?”
“It’s a contraction of ‘Adi Dassler’, the name of the founder.” Nerd.
“No, it means All day I dream about sex.”
The only heterosexual guys I hang out with are film nerds, and sometimes days go by before I speak to a straight guy, so this was educational.
Patrice and a blur.
Then we went to buy underwear and they wore the underpants on their heads.
Harry
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