JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

It’s the 25th anniversary of the assassination of Senator Ninoy Aquino. “Do you remember where you were when you first heard that Ninoy had been shot?” asked my friend, the Princess Poulet. Yes I do. I remember that it was a weekend and I was at home with my mother. Everyone knew that Senator Aquino was arriving that day, so we expected to see the television coverage. But there was no TV coverage of the homecoming, and as the day wore on it was obvious that something bad had happened. Then there was the news bulletin that he’d been shot, allegedly by a hitman who was identified by the name sewn onto his underwear. 

Poulet’s innocent question quickly turned into a morbid game of Where Were You When. On September 11, 2001, when the first plane hit the tower, I was standing in front of an ATM on Wilson Street in Greenhills. My druid and I had just eaten a big dinner at a Chinese restaurant. She had noted that it was the Coptic New Year. Then as I was withdrawing money from the machine, my druid got a text message saying a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. We thought it was a joke in very bad taste.

I was in front of the ATM at United Supermarket (it’s no longer there) in Greenbelt during the big earthquake of 1991. I had just withdrawn money when the ground began to shake violently, then swirl like the contents of a blender. There were aftershocks for days. I remember watching TV coverage of rescue workers retrieving people from collapsed buildings. One TV reporter shoved a microphone at a girl half-buried in rubble and asked, “How are you feeling?” 

In Slate, Daniel Riley reviews the case for cockroaches surviving a nuclear holocaust. Will cockroaches really inherit post-apocalyptic earth? “…Studies over the last half-decade, such as those conducted by the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, have found that these “other insects” are more likely to reign in the age after humans; the cockroach might, in fact, be one of the first bugs to go. More recently, the television show MythBusters tested the effects of radiation on several kinds of insects and discovered that tiny flour beetles were the hardiest—with some surviving a dose of 100,000 rads…”

I was feeling glum for no good reason (which is better than being depressed with good reason) so I thought I’d cheer myself up by watching Wanted. Excellent idea: the movie blew the gloomy thoughts out of my head. Tibur Bekmambetov’s (Russians Russians everywhere I look; really must move to St Petersburg) adaptation of the graphic novel (My sister says they changed it substantially) is ridiculous, exhilarating, insane, and fun for anyone not overly attached to the laws of physics (You mean the trajectory, not the bullet!) or probability. In it, James MacAvoy’s cubicle rat shmoe is recruited for a fraternity of assassins formed in the medieval period. (His minder is Angelina Jolie, who is more lethal than any of the men.) The Fraternity was founded by a weavers’ guild, so I kept imagining the members of the Fashion Designers’ Association of the Philippines hunting down the evil and corrupt and garrotting them with tape measures.

The Fraternity call themselves “the assassins of fate”, “fate” being represented by a loom which churns out cloth, the warp and weft of which they translate into binary code and then into the names of their targets. So if I decide that I am the instrument of fate and I eat a bowl of muesli for breakfast every day (The Bowl of Fate), and I discover a pattern in the cereals which corresponds to the names of actual people…The point being, don’t think too much and you’ll enjoy the flick.

The new, highly-anticipated Indiana Jones movie is called Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. (Highly-anticipated especially by me, since real life is not up to movie standards—I listened to two archaeologists yesterday and neither one had a fedora or a bullwhip. Although I was tempted to let a snake loose during the lecture. . .) According to the posters it opens May 22. The whole production is shrouded in secrecy, but we can assume it’s about the Aztec or Mayan crystal skulls, twelve of which are known to exist.

Now the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris has announced that the crystal skull in its collection is a fake. It’s not ancient Central American, but 19th century Alpine. But they’re still going to put the crystal skull in a special exhibition to coincide with the Indy movie’s release. It will be “hidden” in the museum, and visitors can try to find it. Alors, le museum has picked up ze lesson from ze Louvre’s handling of Le Da Vinci Code: Oui, it is absurd! Heedeeous, vraiment, but les touristes zey love it. Kacheeng-kacheeng.

Does this finding affect Indy’s box-office? Hell no, unless you believe he found the Ark of the Covenant and when the Nazis opened it their faces melted.

They’ve got an ad in The Daily Telegraph, demanding the formal restoration of the order. The last time anyone heard from them was in 1314, when their grand master was burned at the stake. Apparently they’re represented by a West London accountant who also does the books for the Wiggles. Patrick Barkham investigates. First the Ark of the Covenant is reportedly found, then the Templars—supposedly the keepers of the Holy Grail—allegedly resurface. Funny these news should emerge on the year of a new Indiana Jones movie. 

According to the Old Testament, the Ark of the Covenant was a wooden box that contained the Ten Commandments. It could also zap people and reduce them into columns of ash. The Ark was reportedly kept in the Temple of Solomon, which was razed by the Babylonians. According to Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, the lost Ark was found in the Egyptian desert by the intrepid archaeologist Indiana Jones (who, considering the amount of time he spent away from his university and the fact that he never seemed to publish any papers, would’ve been kicked out of the academe). The Ark was then snatched by the Nazis, who did not do their research—they looked when the Ark was opened, and were promptly incinerated. Spielberg and Lucas go on to say that the Ark is now stored inside the Library of Congress or some other building in Washington D.C.

According to Professor Tudor Parfitt of the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, the Ark—or a replacement container—is currently on dusty shelf in a museum in Harare, Zimbabwe. In the 80s, Parfitt supported the claim that a South African clan called Lemba was a lost tribe of Israel. Subsequent DNA tests supported this claim. The Lemba venerated the ngoma lungundu, a drum that contained ritual objects. It also zapped people and reduced them into columns of ash. Parfitt concluded that the ngoma was the Ark, which the Lemba had brought to Africa.

Naturally this theory would be greeted with skepticism, but it is fascinating stuff. Interesting how this surfaces while a new sequel to the Indiana Jones movies is in production. By the way, one thing has troubled me since the last Indiana Jones movie, The Last Crusade. Anyone who drinks from the Holy Grail becomes immortal, right? And Indy and his dad both drank from the grail. Does that mean they’re immortal?