JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

I asked Ige to make a fake ad for a fictional coffee named Barakobama. 

 

 

If the proportions are a little odd, it’s because we used the logo of a local coffee company that sells Barako. I had to crop the ad because we don’t have permission to use their logo. 

Hey, do you sell coffee? We can let you use this. You can contact me by posting in Comments.

Another reason we’re so interested in the US elections: we have to look to their elections to find a candidate we like. When I look at our wannabes for 2010, I feel like moving to Russia. Even if it is next door to whatsherface.

We went on an expedition to QC the other week to see the Amorsolo exhibition at Vargas Museum in UP. Along the way we stopped for lunch at Adarna House on Kalayaan Street. Kermit had read a rave review somewhere, and we were all in the mood for a hearty Pinoy lunch.

The interiors are charming, reminiscent of all the lazy summer afternoons of your childhood, lounging around the ancestral house in the probinsya while your lola in her patadyong made ensaymada and tsokolate in the kitchen.

Actually the summers of my childhood were nothing like that, but for some reason that’s how I remember them. Like the memory implants in Blade Runner.

Alternative memory: Taking your siesta while your mom and titas played mahjong and the maids peeled the butong pakwan for them. That’s from Oro, Plata, Mata.

Adarna House would be an excellent venue for a merienda cena book launch (Adarna is in fact a book publisher).

Kermit ordered the gulaman at sago, which was too sweet. Big Bird said it was flavored with panocha. So Kermit added a whole glass of water to his gulaman at sago. It was still too sweet.

For starters we ordered the Pancit Caviteña, which is a noodle soup. I forgot to take a picture.

For the vegetable course we ordered Bicol Express, but it wasn’t available that day. We had the Gising-Gising instead. It was spicy, but also too sweet for our tastes. 

Humba is supposed to be sweetish. This one was like a meaty banana cake.

I have this theory as to why Filipinos are always smiling. The economy could be in shambles, the politicians could be. . .exactly what they are now, but Pinoys are always cheerful and merry. It’s not dementia, it’s the sugar. All our food is sweet. Our main courses taste like dessert. We don’t have to wait till the end of the meal to get our sweets, our entire meal is dessert.

For dessert I had the Turon, which had peanut butter with the banana. My systems are used to processing vast amounts of sugar, but I had to surrender after the first turon.

By now Big Bird and Kermit were reeling from sugar shock, and each ordered a Guava Sorbet to clear his palate. It cleared their palates, alright–it was so sour, one teaspoon was enough.

My tongue felt like it had been caramelized, but a strong cup of barako took care of that. Hey on US Election Day, let’s temporarily rename our local coffee BARAKOBAMA.

Despite the extreme sweetness, it was a delightful lunch and we’d go back there to try the rest of the menu.

Photo: Velocipede by Ricky Villabona

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According to news reports, in the financial crash many pet owners in the US have abandoned their pets or brought them to animal shelters because they can no longer afford to keep them. It must be wrenching to let your pets go, but a lot of people have lost their houses, and I don’t think Americans have the extended friends-and-family networks that we have. In extreme cases, people have killed their pets, families, and themselves because they can’t face the thought that after a lifetime of work they’ve lost everything. (One thing about living in the third world: we’re used to making do with little, it’s sudden wealth that makes people go berserk.) 

Here at home, we have two new adopted cats. Semi-adopted. They can’t move in with us because there’s no more room and my three cats are extremely territorial. I just feed them from my cats’ supply, and Mike, whose cat Mingming died recently at age 8, buys them cat food. I call them Jarndyce and Jarndyce, from Bleak House; Mike chose their given names: Janko and Jarko (or if they turn out to be girls, Janka and Jarka). They’ve been hanging around my building for months. Every time I open the door, Jarndyce and Jarndyce look in, wondering when they’ll be invited indoors, and my fat cats stare at the ampon, wondering what species the skinny creatures are. There’s no hissing and snarling, though, they’re all very civilized. They may even be related, since Koosi is from the neighborhood and Mat knocked up all the females when he was living outside. 

This is what a pusakal looks like when she’s well-fed and cared for.

 

My career as a Shelf Bandit began in the 1990s, when my first book was published. It was my friend and fellow author, a distinguished recipient of the Order of the French Fry, who introduced me to shelf banditry. We were standing in the Filipiniana section of a bookstore when he casually picked up a stack of his books and moved them to a more prominent place on the shelf, where they were more likely to be noticed by a random browser. So I picked a good spot, moved its occupants to the side, and transferred a stack of my own books to the vacated space. 

As I’ve mentioned, I’m a big fan of NYRB Classics and wish to see them all lined up on bookstore shelves, where they would be more attractive to potential readers. Or at least to interior designers, who would appreciate the spine design. I’ve suggested this to bookstores a couple of times. Yesterday while browsing in Powerbooks Greenbelt, it occurred to me that the way to see this done would be to do it myself. So I located all the NYRB Classics in the Literature section and brought them to the coffee shop to take a picture. Then I cleared a place for them on a shelf.

 

 

Yesterday I tried to do the same thing at Fully Booked in Rockwell. I got one of their trolleys and started locating the books. Unfortunately since the store was renovated the aisles between shelves are much narrower—you can barely drag a trolley through, and if someone is standing before a shelf, you get jammed. So I only found a few titles before I lost my patience.

 

File under “Walang magawa”.

*****

This is the New York Times article on Pannonica de Koenigswarter on the occasion of the US publication of Three Wishes.

This is my article on Pannonica which appeared in The National, Abu Dhabi, in May. The Times cites The National piece as a reference. Hmm. Except for a few quotes, looks like I did all their research. Wow, thanks.

Two nerds stand in front of a movie poster.

Grungella: The title of the movie is “My Only?” 
Ernie: There’s a text smiley next to it, so maybe it’s “My Only Smiley”.
Grungella: That makes no sense to me.
Ernie: It could be “My Only Umlaut”.
Grungella: It’s another language, and I don’t mean German. Could it be “My Only You”? Is that grammatical? It sounds Palinesque.

*****

When I saw the TV commercial in which two actors are getting ready for a dream date, I thought the dream date was with each other. It’s not just that I haven’t seen a heterosexual in days, it’s the way the montage of the two guys getting dressed is edited.

*****

Anthony Lane on the dueling movies by the dueling soon to be ex-Ritchies: “What vexes me most about “Filth and Wisdom” is the economics. Madonna has been a global star for decades. She has amassed a fortune, much of which presumably remains intact. She can’t have spent all of it on jodhpurs and conical bras. So why, when it came to launching herself as a film director, did she limit her budget to $365.23? Such, at any rate, is my estimate for the funding of “Filth and Wisdom.” If the actors were paid according to their talents, they cannot have cost more than forty bucks…“RocknRolla,” by contrast, has competence on its side. Whole scenes go by in which one shot actually matches the next.”

*****

Nerd’s eye view of the Democratic National Convention in September: “It was. . .like the change that might occur between the first and second volumes of some spectacular science fiction fantasy epic. At the end of the first volume, after bitter struggle, Obama had claimed the presumptive nomination. We Fremen had done the impossible, against Sardaukar and imperial shock troops alike. We had brought water to Arrakis.” Michael Chabon on Obama & the Conquest of Denver.

 

PHOTO РA la fin du d̩bat. (REUTERS)