JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

1. We heard the news as we came out of a screening of Rakenrol: Amy Winehouse was found dead in her apartment. We assumed her death was drug-related. These were the things we knew about Amy Winehouse.

a. She drank a lot and did drugs.

b. She was an amazing singer and songwriter.

c. Her debut album was good but her second album was genius.

d. The beehive and eyeshadow.

2. Despite what we’d heard about her lifestyle we were still shocked to hear of her death. Why, when the media had been on an Amy Winehouse deathwatch for years? Perhaps we were hoping that because she was a genuine talent she would be spared the cliché ending. That she would survive her own excesses and hang around to laugh in her detractors’ faces—looking 100 years old at age 50 but with more vitality than singers half her age.

It is hard for us to accept that our good wishes will not keep people alive.

3. Many professed a complete and utter lack of surprise at Winehouse’s death, beginning with those who’d maintained the deathwatch. We suspect that the people who do deathwatches wish someone would do the same for them, for it would mean that a stranger cares whether they live or die.

4. This casual dismissiveness—“I knew this was going to happen”—is interesting because while the speaker professes disinterest, she admits that she is interested after all.

Continue reading my column in interasksyon.com.

There are lines from the movies that creep into our everyday speech. When someone acts all-knowing, not because he knows shit but because he has internet access, I like to quote the first line from Rutger Hauer’s famous monologue in Blade Runner.

When something is wrong, it’s more dramatic to quote Obi-Wan Kenobi than to just say “Something is wrong.”

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Photo: The Carina Nebula Panorama from NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day archive.

Last night as we were leaving Silk in Serendra we beheld a sight that caused our heads to do the Linda Blair 180-degree spin from The Exorcist.

Seated at a table outside Mamou’s were BB Gandanghari, Gretchen Barretto, and Chavit Singson.

It was mind-bending, like seeing a year’s worth of tabloids take human form and order drinks. In the general stupefaction no one thought to take a picture.

Admittedly fear was a factor. You know what one of them is capable of. Yes, Gretchen is terrifying.

What could they talking about? If there were four of them I’d be worried about the Apocalypse. More likely they were discussing something innocuous like kitchen tiles or sunscreen, but we’d like to think that the lives of the. . .famous are so much more exciting than ours. In this case we are absolutely certain that the lives of the. . .famous are so much more exciting than ours.

I reported this cosmic occurrence to several friends. Bernard-Henri noted that the three of them together is perfect casting for the next movie by the National Artist. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Apat Na Alas Sa Taguig (Oh God, You Must Be Kidding!)

Another conversation I have on a regular basis.

Televiewer: Hey, I really enjoyed that interview you did on TV last week.
Me: I’m not on TV.
Televiewer: That interview? On TV? Last week? I really enjoyed it.
Me: I wasn’t on TV last week. Haven’t done a TV show since 2002.
Televiewer: But I just saw you on TV! You interviewed si kwan, sino na nga ba yon.
Me: I swear to you I am not on television.
Televiewer: Oh! It was Jessica Soho.
Me: Ah! Premature senility. (I just thought this. One tries to be polite.)

Last week Lee had a birthday party in Bellini’s Marikina. I got the invitation by text and I thought she meant Bellini’s in Marikina Shoe Expo. Turns out there is a branch of Bellini’s in Marikina near the market in Riverbanks. From Katipunan you keep going and turn right on the second bridge after you see the big shoes. Bellini’s Marikina is run by Daniele, the son of Roberto Bellini of Pisa the ex-paparazzo frequently confused with Roberto Benigni. It has the same food and decor (that funny mural and the Leaning Tower replica) as the original restaurant in Cubao. Seven or eight years ago I had a birthday dinner at Bellini’s. A dozen guests, and the bill came to less than P3,000. It’s a lot more expensive now.

Who should appear but the actual Jessica Soho. I discovered that she’s known JayLo longer than I have, and he did her hair in the 80s. She says he gave her a hairline; he tries to shorten my giant forehead. So there: Jessica and I have been in the same place at the same time, ergo we are not the same person.

Ricky Jay, sleight of hand artist, actor, Mamet collaborator, narrator of the film Magnolia, author, on Susan Boyle, exposure, and the audience’s expectations.

CONFLATE, if you will, the extraordinary attention lavished on the unlikely 47-year-old Scottish songstress Susan Boyle, whose rise and fall played out recently on the television program “Britain’s Got Talent,” and the reaction accorded to one Mathew Buchinger some time earlier in the Council Chambers in Edinburgh.

Because of their appearance, both Buchinger and Ms. Boyle were saddled with low expectations. This can work to the performer’s advantage: lessened anticipation coupled with high ability can bring on an exponential acceptance.