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In my continuing search for post-Soviet novels written by Russians (Victor Pelevin!), I chanced upon Ghostwritten by David Mitchell. Its blurb mentions that part of the book happens in St Petersburg. So I started on Ghostwritten, which is every bit as exhilarating as the later Cloud Atlas. The novel consists of nine parts featuring nine characters who are oblivious of each other. The narrator of the Tokyo section is 19-year-old Satoru, a half-Filipino, half-Japanese clerk at a jazz record store.

“I wondered about my real mother. Not hankeringly. It’s pointless to hanker. Mama-san said she’d been deported back to the Philippines afterwards, and would never be allowed back into Japan. I can’t help but wonder, just sometimes, who she is now, what she’s doing, and whether she ever thinks about me.”

He turns up again in the later sections. I peeked. I like Mitchell’s novels because something actually happens in them (I’m old school, I like plot), and they’re big. Too many contemporary novels suffer from a lack of ambition. Look, if you’re going to aim so low, why bother to write it?

Michelangelo’s tomb, Firenze, originally uploaded by Koosama.

“Between 1974 and 1985, seven couples—fourteen people in all—were murdered while making love in parked cars in the hills of Florence. The case was never solved, and it has become one of the longest and most expensive criminal investigations in Italian history. More than 100,000 men have been investigated and more than a dozen arrested, and scores of lives have been ruined by rumor and false accusations. There have been suicides, exhumations, poisonings, body parts sent by post, séances in graveyards, lawsuits, and prosecutorial vendettas. The investigation has been like a malignancy, spreading backward in time and outward in space, metastasizing to different cities and swelling into new investigations, with new judges, police, and prosecutors, more suspects, more arrests, and many more lives ruined. It was an extraordinary story, and I would—to my sorrow—come to share Spezi’s obsession with it.”

A writer’s obsession with a serial killer leads to his being charged with obstruction of justice, planting evidence, and complicity in the killings. The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston in The Atlantic.

The Flip Reader, originally uploaded by saffysafina.

For advance orders, email Anvil Publishing, anvilpublishing@yahoo.com.

In 1999, three aging Gen X-ers decided after ingesting mass quantities of caffeine and sugar that they would start a magazine. The X’s in question were Francine Medina, assistant lifestyle editor, Roby Alampay, investigative reporter, and myself, a columnist. We had all been working at Today (now extinct) newspaper for five years, and we needed new territory to map out.

Now every journalist wants to start a magazine, even if pundits have long declared that “Print is dead.” We all knew what sort of publication we wanted. Roby wanted a magazine that would do in-depth reports on current social and political affairs. Francine wanted a showcase for independent new artists, photographers, and designers. I wanted something good to read. We agreed that our ideas could coexist in a single magazine. . .

How to start a magazine in Emotional Weather Report, Friday in the Star.

I took time off from the digital age this weekend—no email, internet, text, cellphone for a day. True, it was Sunday so there was less information traffic. Must try this again in the middle of a busy week. I started and finished Smiley’s People, which is so tense that your entire body feels like a clenched fist. Eminently satisfying. Can anyone recommend a post-Soviet Russian novel? The only ones I know of are Sergei Lukyanenko’s vampire thrillers Night Watch, etc. I scoured Fully Booked and found Andrey Kurkov’s Death and the Penguin—the first chapters are deadpan funny, plus I like penguins and could spend hours watching them.

By the way, Hancock is extremely enjoyable. It doesn’t dwell too much on the wino-superhero’s origins, which is just as well because the “explanation” for the waning of his powers doesn’t hold up. Also, he’s more fun as a drunken slob. Not that people are necessarily more interesting when they’re smashed or high. Substances only turn off inhibitions and trigger what’s already there. People who are boring to begin with can only be more boring when drunk or stoned; they just become more fascinating to themselves.

When the movie starts, a kid wakes Hancock, who’s passed out on a bench. “Hey!” my friend and I chorused. “That kid looks like Weng Weng!” I said. “That kid looks like Vladimir Putin!” my friend said at the exact same moment. So by the principle of transitivity, does Vladimir Putin look like Weng Weng? (For the conspiracy theorist: Is Vladimir Putin Weng Weng?)

Family portrait, originally uploaded by saffysafina.

Marat lost in the semis to The Fed. He couldn’t summon up his A game, gesticulated, muttered, yelled, threw his racquet. A minor opera from a man who one flew into a rage, smashed a chair onto the court, then recited a poem in Russian and apologized to the audience. Never been one for consolation prizes, but he won five matches in a row. Also, I’d assumed that he’d been playing badly for over a year because he was nuts. Turns out the problem wasn’t all mental. According to the Times of London, his coach Herman Gumy, who joined the team ten months ago, realized that Marat was favoring his surgically-repaired knee. This had changed his movement, notably the swing on his forearm. They’ve been undoing this, and the results are just beginning to show.

*****

The End. About 4 am Monday, as the match passed the four-hour mark, with a rain delay and two suspensions due to rain, I thought, Will someone please end this so I can sleep! Nadal defeated Federer, 6-4, 6-4, 7-6, 7-6, 9-7. Federer tried everything, coming back from two sets down and saving three match points in spectacular fashion. To produce the most beautiful shots at the worst moments of the worst day of his life: amazing. But Nadal was the Terminator—nothing short of liquid nitrogen would’ve cooled him down. Here’s a level-headed appraisal of what is probably the best match of the open era.

Jeg makes an interesting point in the comments about equal prize money for the men and women. It is true that the quality of tennis on the men’s tour is generally far superior to the women’s. What do you think: Do Rafa and Ana deserve equal prize money? And since more attention seems to be paid to the ladies’ outfits than to their playing, should the men take to wearing shorter shorts? Bring back the Borg-era hot pants!

More on the final from the Mayor of London, who comments on the omnipresent wedgie and how that cross-court forehand zinger approaches the Platonic ideal.

From Andrew Leavold at Trash Video: The Search for Weng Weng is a site to promote my forthcoming documentary on my quest for the Philippines’ long-dead midget James Bond. Read the REAL Weng Weng story and interview with Weng Weng’s brother, see stacks of stills from my Philippines shoots – photos with President Marcos’ daughter, WW co-star Dolphy, Eddie Garcia, 80s bold superstar Maria Isabel Lopez, and shots of Weng Weng’s family home, friends and last resting place… the most complete Weng Weng filmography yet, with posters (We’ve found yet another one – a 1981 prequel to For Your Height Only called Agent 00!)… “White Guerrilla In Manila” article on the history of Philippines B-films, Gerry de Leon’s vampire double, Eddie Romero filmography, the Blood Island trilogy reviewed AND MORE!