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6pm. Found a bag made out of vinyl tablecloth. I am in my Check Period. Still black, but checkered.

8pm. Saw Raya Martin’s Independencia at the French Film Festival at Shangri-La Mall. So many people turned up to see it, the organizers had to schedule a second screening immediately after the 8pm show or there’d be a moviegoer riot. For an experimental film! Will wonders never cease.

Raya and his stars.

Independencia is in beautiful black-and-white; I think they could remove the dialogue altogether. When it rains in the forest I keep thinking, “That’s why I never go camping.”

Tried in vain to convince Martin from the French Embassy to show the 35mm print of The 400 Blows instead of the DVD. He says the print doesn’t have subtitles. But everyone’s already seen The 400 Blows from the Quiapo Cinematheque, I said, we already know what happens.

The 400 Blows will be screened on Sunday at 5.30pm. Go if you’ve never seen it. And go early because there’s a long queue.

10pm. Went to Joel Torre the King of Manok’s dinner for the American filmmaker John Sayles (Lone Star, Eight Men Out, The Return of the Secaucus Seven). Sayles is in town to cast actors and scout locations for a movie on the Philippine-American War that he will shoot in Bohol in January. This is not his first time in the Philippines, he has lots of Pinoy friends and co-workers. He’s written a 900-page novel about the Philippine-American War that will be published next year. Yay, he agreed to show us an excerpt for Manila Envelope 4. Yay, material for next week’s column.

Krip Yuson wants everyone to know he hates the fucking Lakers. All I know about basketball is that their shorts are too long but LeBron is cute.

Photo: Matthias Eomer Octavian

The Pacquiao-Hatton bout was over so quickly we had to entertain ourselves by discussing Pac-Man’s youngest daughter, Queen Elizabeth.

– I’m sure the Brits get a kick out of it. Their boxer lost, but Pac-Man named his kid after their monarch.
– Imagine when she gets a little older. “Queen Elizabeth huwag kang makulit, papaluin kita!”
– The names Filipino parents give their kids. “Nina Ricci”.
– Yes, but Nina Ricci carries it well.
– You should call your kid Coco Chanel. “Coco Chanel, naglaro ka na naman sa putikan, ang bahu-baho mo na!”
– “Coco Chanel, tingnan mo nga yang suot mo, ang dungis-dungis!”
– I know someone who named his kid Dracula. He should get a perpetual visa to Transylvania.
– “Hoy Dracula, nagsimba ka na ba?”
– “Dracula, first communion mo na, male-late na tayo.”
– As we speak, there are people out there who plan to name their future children “Wolverine Sabertooth Wraith Gambit Deadpool”.

You know you’re reading a great novel when everything about it feels urgent and vivid. . .and it’s about cricket. It makes you want to learn to play cricket. You could devour it in one sitting, but you force yourself to read slowly because you don’t want to run out of novel.

Paging every bookstore in the city: You need to put Netherland on your shelves. For now you’ll have to order it online or ask friends abroad to get it for you. If you’re going to read one novel this year, this is the one.

Each December, we ask a bunch of serious readers to name their favorite books of the year. While the committee members agonize over their choices, why don’t you list your best books of 2008?

Top Ten lists are gimmicky, trendy, political, highly subjective, and facile. So bring on the Top Tens of the year, beginning with Books. Here is NYT’s Best Books of 2008. I have been looking for a copy of Netherland by Joseph O’Neill for months, nada. The Lahiri and the Barnes are widely available. Otsu has read Patrick French’s biography of V.S. Naipaul—the man treated women in an appalling manner, but he gave his biographer access to damning material. Horrible, but brave. The Millhauser is at the Greenbelt branch of Powerbooks, whose shelves have been looking thin lately—when will the new books arrive?

Read History of a Disturbance by Steven Millhauser. 

The New Yorker’s Anthony Lane lists his Top 10 Films of 2008. Lean year, he notes. Maybe the good stuff opens in December?

At Salon, Laura Miller’s Top 10 Books of 2008. Bolano’s 2666 and Mayer’s The Dark Side (Scarier than vampires: the war on terror that became a war on American ideals) are also on her list.

Robert McCrum names his Top 10 Books of the Year, with full disclosures of his relationships with their authors.

The Xmas rush was suspended until 1pm today as everyone in the archipelago was glued to the Pacquiao-De La Hoya match. For almost an hour I had the mall to myself. “Manny Pacquiao confirmed his status as the world’s best pound-for-pound boxer last night with a stunning, lop-sided victory in Las Vegas over Oscar De La Hoya. . .Lighter, shorter and less illustrious, Pacquiao was billed as De La Hoya’s inferior in multiple ways but when the boxing started he was so superior that this hugely anticipated contest rapidly developed into a ritual humiliation.” Pacquiao masterclass stuns De La Hoya in the Guardian. Does the Arroyo administration know how much it owes Manny Pacquiao for its continued employment?

“The small village of Nawakille (pop. few thousand) outside the frontier city of Peshawar in Pakistan boasts something that no other in the world can. Over the last half century, the village that does not have a single squash court, has produced six world number ones in the sport. In fact, since 1950 the six between them have won 29 British Opens (the Wimbledon of squash) and 14 World Opens (which started only in 1975). . .”

Nawakille: A Squash Town in All Things Pakistan, via 3Quarks Daily.

Michael Phelps, originally uploaded by saffysafina

Breakfast
3 fried-egg sandwiches with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, fried onions, lots of mayonnaise
2 cups of coffee
5-egg omelet
Bowl of grits
3 slices French toast with powdered sugar
3 chocolate-chip pancakes

Lunch
1 pound enriched pasta
2 big ham and cheese sandwiches with mayo on white bread
Energy drinks, 1,000 calories each

Dinner
1 pound pasta
An entire pizza
More energy drinks

All the stuff doctors warn will clog arteries! Hurrah! There is a catch though. You have to be Michael Phelps. (If you are not Michael Phelps training for the Olympics, this is the Homer Simpson Diet.)