Today’s Emotional Weather Report in the Star: a column I wrote many days ago, in which I assumed that Roger Federer had already won the Australian Open. I am as superstitious as the next tennis fan, but face it, The Fed will win. In yesterday’s semifinal the only thing he didn’t do was catch the Roddick serve with his bare hand. And he could have.
For a detailed recap—lots of spoilers— see the official site. This is a temporary fix for the junkies.
The death of the gangster Erastes Fulmen leads to chaos in the Aventine. Vorenus is still in mourning. Octavian demands that Mark Antony hand over his inheritance so he can give the plebs what Caesar promised them. Cleopatra demands that her son by Caesar be recognized. Rome is on the verge of collapse. Antony orders Vorenus to pull himself together and reestablish order in the Aventine, which Vorenus does by being a complete madman. Octavian, whom no one takes seriously, wants to enter public life and angers Antony, who beats the crap out of him. Octavian leaves Atia’s house. We learn that Vorenus’ children are alive.
Carnage: Many thugs beaten, stabbed, thrown into sacks with snakes.
Nudity: Whores in the brothel
Sex: Suggested. Cleopatra, clad in Egyptian Versace, charms everyone at dinner.
Atia to Cleopatra: Die screaming, you pig-spawn trollop.
The Oscar voters will finally hand Martin Scorsese the statuette because
1. It’s long overdue.
2. It’s become too obvious to non-voters that they dislike him. They always pick an actor-director over him—Robert Redford, Kevin Costner (?!), Clint Eastwood. (Actors are the biggest voting bloc in the Academy. Also, most actor-voters are underemployed or retired.)
3. The Departed is Scorsese’s most “Hollywood” movie: star-studded, action-packed, crowd-pleasing, villains get their just desserts, “good” triumphs over “evil”. Ignore the irony that it’s based on a Hong Kong thriller.
4. No one gets an Oscar for their best work anyway, it’s acknowledgment or reparation.
5. They want to demonstrate that they are cooler than their elders who passed him over many times before.
The Oscar voters will not give Martin Scorsese the statuette because
1. They don’t like him. (Too New York.)
2. He never calls, he never writes.
3. The Departed is a genre film.
4. They will give it to Clint Eastwood, the All-American Hero. (He even looks the part: tall, lean, laconic, rugged. Marty is short, talks too fast, and is all eyebrows.)
5. “Where are the good old American values in his movies? Why do they have to cuss so much?” (Here’s an impression of Joe Pesci in Goodfellas: They fucking nominate him so they can fuck him over again.)
Cecile was just telling me about a dinner where the guests noted the sudden profusion of mangoes in supermarkets. Apparently mango season came early this year: mangoes don’t usually arrive till summer. According to a food writer, the mangoes were confused by shifts in the weather—they thought it was already summer, so they bore fruit.
Meanwhile, our correspondent reports that “Winter in Austria is the all-time damp squib. When I arrived last September the locals took great pleasure in warning me of just what was in store: Snow-drifts of one metre, heaping up in only 50 minutes…Birds falling lifeless from the sky like feathered bricks…Icicles of snot hanging from one’s nostrils…Well, that was last winter. This winter we’ve so far seen six snowflakes and the temperature has dropped fractionally below freezing on maybe ten nights since late October. The buds on the trees are beginning to burst and the birds are so fat they can barely screw each other, which they’ve already begun doing. Local sages and ancients shake their hoary heads and say ‘It isn’t over yet. I well remember in the winter of 1929…’ etc. It’s all rather cheering, and most of all that ski resorts are going broke. God knows they’ve done enough to disfigure the Alps in the last half-century. Maybe now the innocent mountains will be allowed to reclaim some of their ‘Sound of Music’ virginity, and bunches of Edelweiss will be back on sale and children in Lederhosen will pipe up ‘Doe, a deer, a female deer’ in marketplaces throughout the land. . .”
I heard from someone else that the migratory patterns of birds were changing suddenly, as if their instinctual clocks were out of kilter. Confused fruit and disoriented birds. Weird weather and ecological imbalance. What next: Snow in the tropics?
“So, in corner number one there was Challah, alone, smoking, ashing; in corner number two we have a pair of engineering students, a heavyset and demonstrably gay Filipino practicing hypnosis on a very loud and impressionable man half his age (“You are Jim Morrison. . .I am Jim Morrison!”). . .” – The Russian Debutante’s Handbook by Gary Shteyngart
(Photo: Saffy sulking after papy loses in 3rd round of Australian Open.)
“Tom Decker: Ignition”, an exhibit of recent sculpture and ceramics, will be on display at the Ayala Museum Artist’s Space, 2nd Floor, Glass Wing from January 25- February 8, 2007. Artworks in this solo exhibition include small scale figurative sculpture and ceramic tea bowls by California native Tom Decker.
Opening Reception: Thursday, January 25, 6pm-8.30pm
Entrance is free to Ayala Museum Artist’s Space, 2nd Floor, Glass Wing, Makati Avenue corner De la Rosa Street, Makati City.
Please pass through the 2nd floor pedestrian walkway. Pay parking is available at the Greenbelt 4 underground parking.
Exhibit is open Monday to Friday, 9am to 6pm, Saturday and Sunday, 10am to 7pm.
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