JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

We’ve realized that most people have no idea who John Carter of Mars is, and it’s hard to design a costume that works for someone you don’t know. So we’re moving the deadline to 13 March 2012, after the movie has opened.

Also it might be useful to give the star a GPS or a smartphone with Google apps so he knows where he is at all times and can correct misimpressions.

Here’s Mat wearing the prize during his early evening nap (not to be confused with his twilight siesta).

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This is Taylor Kitsch as John Carter in the movie that opens March 9.

Fabulous-looking man, but the loincloth-and-breastplate costume is a little tired. Of course the outfit is faithful to the description supplied by Edgar Rice Burroughs in A Princess of Mars and the succeeding volumes in the John Carter Barsoom series, so the filmmakers are doing their job well. However, much as we love the Barsoom series we grew up on, we think the costume could be freshened up. Edgar Rice Burroughs: wonderful writer of timeless adventures, but what was his other famous creation Tarzan wearing? A loincloth, you know what we’re saying?

Remember those endless Tarzan reruns on Channel 13, where they would show ancient Johnny Weismuller movies like Tarzan’s New York Adventure? In that one, Tarzan travels to Manhattan and he can’t go around in the old loincloth unless it’s Saturday night in Chelsea. So Jane takes him to a tailor, where he proceeds to rip all the suits he tries on with his massive back muscles.

But back to the John Carter costume issue. A couple of years ago we had our super-popular Dress Up the Prince of Persia contest in which we put your designs on Jake Gyllenhaal’s body, and the creators of the best designs won special edition watches. This time we’re asking you to Dress Up John Carter, and the three people who send in the winning designs get special edition John Carter watches you can’t buy in stores.

Remember: the design must be appropriate to the climate, terrain and culture of Mars. Desert, basically, arid, cold at night, warring tribes not all humanoid. Method designers can read A Princess of Mars at Project Gutenberg for the design requirements. (If you’re not designing a costume read it anyway, the series is a blast.)

Make it work, but most of all, Make it fabulous. Send your drawings to saffron.safin@gmail.com. We’ll post your designs daily. Deadline for the submission of entries is on 6 March 2012 at noon.

Thanks to Jay at Disney for the prizes!

Ricky found these neon green cat’s eye sunglasses at Prada, marked down so low we could actually afford them. We took them to Nella Sarabia’s shop at UP Shopping Center in Diliman to have our prescription lenses made. 24 hours later we’re trying to convince Saffy that there is a family resemblance.

While broiling in the heat of the Melbourne summer I realized I was wearing the wrong shoes. My thick-soled tennis shoes might have been useful for chasing a down-the-line forehand by Nadal, except that there is a zero probability of me chasing a down-the-line forehand by Nadal. They were too heavy in the heat; at every step I felt like I was lifting an anvil.

On my return to Manila I proceeded to the mall to look for shoes. I am happy with my topsiders but I can’t be wearing boat shoes all the time: I feel like asking myself where my boat is parked. I needed lightweight shoes such as canvas sneakers, with efficient rubber soles because I walk a lot (Walking being the only thing I do that qualifies as physical exercise).

Read The Politics of Shopping, our column this week in InterAksyon.com.

Crocodile, meet shirt. Chris Banks, Melbourne Zoo’s director for international conservation partnerships, introduces a baby crocodile to David Celdran, Philippine endorser of the Lacoste Save Your Logo project.

Unless you are cut off from civilization you have probably heard about biodiversity loss and its impact on the environment. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature Red List reports that 1 in 8 birds, 1 in 4 mammals, and 1 in 3 amphibians are endangered species. An estimated 15 to 37 percent of all species will be extinct in 40 years unless we do something more than rattle off alarming statistics or claim to be environmentalists in order to look cool.

Some species have advantages over others. We’ll donate to campaigns to protect whales and dolphins because they’re cute and in the event of an ocean disaster we imagine they would be our aquatic Leonardo DiCaprios. We’ll buy T-shirts with pictures of lions and stuffed toy tigers because big cats are beautiful, majestic creatures. We’ll visit tarsier reservations because they’re cute, although we really need to weigh the nocturnal beasties’ interests against the entertainment of loud tourists with their blinding flash cameras.

But crocodiles? Not an easy species to love. They’re hideous, they’re scary, and in countless movies we’ve seen them eat people (hence their bad reputation, which is unfair). But if crocodiles cease to exist, the complex balance in wetland ecosystems would be upset. We would lose one of the last survivors of the prehistoric age, a creature that has not changed in the last 100 million years. Crocodiles lived through the rise and extinction of the dinosaurs and the evolution of our own ancestors; it would be terrible if they don’t survive human encroachment into their natural habitats.

Read our column Emotional Weather Report today in the Philippine Star.

VF illustration by James Taylor

The only thing that has changed fundamentally and dramatically about stylish objects (computerized gadgets aside) during the last 20 years is the same thing that’s changed fundamentally and dramatically about movies and books and music—how they’re produced and distributed, not how they look and feel and sound, not what they are.

You Say You Want A Devolution by Kurt Andersen in VF.

Skulls and kitties from Annie and BenCab’s trip to Mexico. Thank you! They’re almost as fab as a BenCab painting of earrings. Hint haha.