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Money

Ernie and Bert wandered into a store in Greenbelt 5, Makati. It had some interesting benches for sale. When they looked at the tags, they noticed that the prices were in US dollars.

“Why are the prices in dollars?” Ernie asked.

“Because we’re a multinational company,” the salesperson said, in a tone that attempted but did not achieve haughtiness. If there’s one thing worse than snootiness, it’s fake snootiness.

“Louis Vuitton is a multinational company, but their prices are in pesos,” Bert pointed out.

The salesperson was still thinking of a retort when Ernie and Bert left.

If you have nothing to do this long weekend, why not drop by that store and ask why their prices are in American dollars? Then hit them with these follow-up questions:

Bakit sa Hermes, pesos?
Bakit sa Prada/Gucci, pesos?
Bakit sa Diesel, pesos?
Bakit sa Levi’s, pesos?
Bakit sa Body Shop, pesos?
Bakit sa McDonald’s pesos?

A flier from the Echostore. (Typo!)

I got the bag on the top row, left. I call it Raffia Nadal.

Mamma mia, what vile curse has befallen me, which powers have I offended, that I should belong to a woman who does not own a single pair of high heels? She intends to tread the ground in. . .I dread to say the words, they are too distressing. . .Sneakers! Flats! A ridiculous pair of wellingtons!

Stop it, Gianluca, stop it, I say. At least she did not fly coach this time. Look, I am the handsomest suitcase on the carrousel at the airport of Melbourne. The other humans and their cargo, they back away, they are feeling proletarian.

We arrived at 7 am, too early to check into the hotel, so we proceed to the Queen Victoria Market, the largest open-air market in the hemisphere. Here we have the epiphany: All the world’s markets now look alike, they are hawking stuff made in China. She says it is like the Divisoria, only organized, clean, and more expensive. What is a Divisoria? I only know the mercato with the Porcellino.

The owner, she is only interested in two things:

The Australian cheeses,

and the hats. She is obsessed with finding the tweedy old guy hat that fits her enormous head. I swear to you it is ginormous, molto molto, it should have its own satellite. The amused hat seller helped her to try on dozens upon dozens of trilbies, porkies, homburgs and other tweedies, but none of them would fit. I must call the Guinness. Andiamo!

Using nail scissors I did surgery on my hat and replaced the flower with a cat pin. Now I am prepared for the Australian sunshine. Going to Melbourne and Victoria on Thursday.

(Newsflash: It’s cold and rainy in Melbourne. Yay! I have silly wellies.)

‘What happened to your other hat, the green one?’ It didn’t really fit, so I gave it to the marvelous Marion in New Zealand.

‘Which glasses are you going to wear with your new hat?’ These. The ones I found in a street market in Auckland; my optometrist made me prescription shades.

By the way if you want to buy a signed copy of Twisted 8 1/2, there are nine copies available at my optometrist’s. That’s Nella Sarabia, UP Shopping Center, Diliman QC, telephone 4355685. Get yourself a pair of sunglasses for the summer, she’s got the flexible bendy frames.

* * * * *

Ned has a funny election-related story. He spotted a group of street urchins outside a church and he couldn’t resist asking, “Nakaligo na ba kayo sa dagat ng basura?”

The urchins said, “Hindi ho, si Villar lang yon. Doon kami naliligo sa poso.”

Mat: What the hell is that?

An amazing thing has happened! Anna found a hat that fits my head!

She had to carry a tape measure around to make sure the circumference was at least 24 inches (My head doesn’t need a hat, it needs pants.) Thank you Anna, you are the Shopping Champion.

The color is. . .not me, but I can live with violet-ish. The flower, though, will have to go. By the way, Anna found not one but two hats big enough for the giant head, but the other one is a bright orange and I’m not going near that color this election season.

I like hanging out in National Bookstore, but then I am the kind of person who hyperventilates when she sees nice paper. Some of the things I’ve spotted in store lately:

I’m not sure if my puberty was triggered by seeing Warren Beatty in Heaven Can Wait or Matt Dillon in Rumblefish, but when Heaven Can Wait came out in 1978 (After the ice had thawed) I convinced my mom to take me to see it thrice. (Now that I think about it, my mom and I had the same crush.) My friend took a simpler approach: He put pictures of Warren Beatty under his pillow.

Star (Hardcover, Php1259) is the biography of Beatty by Peter Biskind, author of that great book about Hollywood in the 70s, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls. The megalomaniacs and demented geniuses who defined the filmmaking of that period make the indies of the 90s onwards seem bland and wimpy: Down and Dirty Pictures is a little boring, even with the excesses of the Weinsteins.

On the left: a travel notebook (Php419) that contains an accordion folder for your travel documents, receipts, etc, and a notepad. Right: A set of 55 antiquarian bookplates (Php634.75).

You like bookplates huh? Okay, we’ll also give away bookplates with this week’s LitWit Challenge.

In the children’s section, The Lost Files of Nancy Drew: the scrapbook of our favorite girl detective. It comes with a set of postcards with the original cover art of the series. (Php395)

Wells Tower’s short story collection was a fixture in critics’ best books lists last year. The title story is a hilarious, gory, deeply moving tale of marauding Vikings. (Hardcover, Php1149)