JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

I got it, I got it, please stop sending me this video.

Here’s a clip from The Little Prince (1974), in which Bob Fosse plays the Snake. His moves are stunningly familiar, except that he did them earlier. (If you have not seen All That Jazz, watch it. Now.)

So Elvis Presley stole rock ‘n roll from the black people, and Michael Jackson stole the moonwalk from the white people.

Elsewhere, Steve Martin attempting the moonwalk in 1983. Do not try this at home.

Read the angry comments accusing Steve of opportunism. . .for a parody he did a quarter-century ago. Cretins.

There’s a scene in David O. Russell’s film Three Kings that sums up our conflicted feelings about Michael Jackson. In the scene, American soldier Mark Wahlberg is being tortured by his Iraqi captors. Between electric shocks the torturer asks: “What is the problem with Michael Jackson?! Is he not the King of Pop?!” You don’t know whether to laugh or be horrified, so you do both.

It’s Tennis Mike’s brother’s birthday party and we’re supposed to go. I ask Mike the simple question, “What time shall we meet?”

He says, “Well I’m late for a 4pm meeting and I have to go buy a present for another friend who’s having a birthday but I can’t decide what to get him and then I have to pick up the gift for my brother and there’s another guest I have to fetch and oh no I’m late for my meeting but I’ll call you at 7 to tell you what time we’re meeting and anyway the party’s at 9 ay 4.30 na pala!”

This is actually normal behavior for my friends, so instead of hanging around the mall I go home. I do not hear from Mike. At 9 I text him. “Are we still going to Gerry’s?”

He says, “Oh no, I decided to stay home and watch tennis.”

Fortunately I am comfortably ensconced in my own house so I spare him.

Some days later I see Tennis Mike at lunch and he says, “I’m dealing with my stress. I bought a motivational book. I’ll share it with you. But I forgot it at home.”

He does offer me a bribe: the Picasso’s Nose eyeglass holder in the picture.

Here’s the scary part: In my circle of friends I’m the sane one.

We’re out of books, so tough luck to the people down in the queue. The good news is that I’m working out the details for a proper contest in which we give away NEW BOOKS, crisp and fragrant from the bookstore, the titles freshly picked by yours truly. Watch out for that announcement.

The last batch of free books goes to:

Peeling the Onion by Gunter Grass – xkwzt
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte – ros_al
Sudoku – rossan
Sudoku – rn_girl
Fruitcake by the Eraserheads – maryelogs

(Apologies for the earlier confusion, we seem to have given away some books twice. Gamboagan very nicely agreed to take Dance, Dance, Dance instead.)

These winners have exactly seven days, from Tuesday, June 30 to Monday, July 6, to pick up their prizes/have their prizes picked up at Wild Ginger, the Asian restaurant at the basement of Power Plant Mall in Rockwell. Any time from 11 am to 8 pm will be fine; look for Nida or Marge. If any books are left, we’ll assign them to other entries in the queue.

Kermit found this here. Alright boys, to the gym with all of you.

Between Anderson’s casual look and Andy Murray’s new Wimbledon style, looks like Fred Perry is the label. I await the return of 1970’s-length tennis shorts (hot pants for guys).

Marlon’s holiday collection at Fashion Week, SMX, May 2009.

Marlon Rivera is reading Visual Language for Designers by Connie Malamed, The Information Design Handbook by Jenn and Ken Visocky O’Grady, and The Black Dress by Valerie Steele.

Boboy Consunji is reading Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles and getting depressed by Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking.

Budjette Tan is reading The Book of Lies by Brad Metzler and Outside the Dog Museum by Jonathan Carroll.

Uro de la Cruz is reading Camera Soldiers: The Philippine Odyssey by James Stephens, A Canon of Vegetables by Raymond Solokov, and Karma by Rishi Reddi.

Jaime Augusto Zobel was halfway through Martin Cruz Smith’s December 6 (about wartime Tokyo) but could not get himself to finish it. He is reading C.J. Sansom’s Winter in Madrid, set in post-Civil War Spain, and the new biography of Gabriel Garcia Marquez by Gerald Martin.

I am finishing the Berger and reading The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon. The one fiction-one nonfiction combination works for me.

Jaime biking in Namibia, May 2009.

This column was written two days earlier and it appeared online hours before the death was announced. How did I know that Michael Jackson was going to die?

Am I psychic?

Do I know the secrets of the universe?

Do I know when you’re going to die? (Do you seriously want to know?)

Fine, I’ll tell you.

IT’S A COINCIDENCE.

In hindsight it seems obvious, but when I had the overpowering urge to listen to Jackson’s albums I thought it was just some midlife nostalgia trip. Fortunately I’ve just read Leonard Mlodinow’s book on randomness, so I can explain it to myself. Ooh, there’s a column.

So if you want to know the future or to place a curse on someone, you’d be better off consulting one of these.

Aswang (sculpture by Ryan Villamael)

It’s only been 24 hours, but after the media overload we are now tired of hearing about Michael Jackson. Funny how the technology that is supposed to abate boredom really hastens its onset.