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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.

We’re not into perfume; strong scents give us a headache. If you want to make us leave a room immediately, send in a guy doused in cologne. We don’t care how gorgeous he is or whether his perfume was distilled by Carthaginian monks who had taken a vow of silence and worked only by the light of a waxing gibbous moon, we’re outta there. We’ll put up with the stench of a kitty litter box because we have to, but prolonged exposure to Chanel No. 5 makes our head start pounding.

That said, we really enjoyed Perfumes, the A-Z Guide by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez.

Luca Turin is a biophysicist who studies the science of smell. We learned about him from TED. This book is a field guide to nearly 2,000 perfumes in the market, written in a style that combines erudition and wiseassery.

It’s an excellent shopping companion. A couple of years ago we field-tested this book by going to designer boutiques, sniffed their perfumes, and then reading the corresponding reviews. Aloud.

For instance, at Hermes we asked for a whiff of Osmanthe Yunnan, which gets a 5-star rating from Turin and Sanchez. Then we read, “When Jean-Claude Ellena, now in-house perfumer at a little saddler’s outfit called Hermes first did the soapy suede-and-apricots scent of the osmanthus flower for The Different Company’s Osmanthus, it was like one of those deceptively simple, pretty Paul McCartney melodies that seem so obvious once heard, you suspect he finds them lying fully formed in the street…” If the sales staff found us strange they hid it well; then again we are strange. We also went to Marc Jacobs and clucked over the perfume that only merited 3 stars.

Among the perfumes that get a 5-star rating are Angel, Aromatics Elixir, Badgley Mischka, Cool Water, Cuir de Russie, Dior Homme, Dune, Eau Sauvage, Knowing, Kouros, Secretions Magnifiques and Ubar.

3. The Book of Imaginary Beings by Jorge Luis Borges, translated by Andrew Hurley. Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition illustrated by Peter Sis.

Php 629 at National Bookstores.

4. My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me. Forty new fairy tales by Kelly Link, Aimee Bender, Ludmilla Petrushevskaya and others, edited by Kate Bernheimer.

Php689 at National Bookstores.

If you’re going shopping today you will have to stand in line so bring a book. While your fellow shoppers grumble and make idle threats in the queue, your mind will be somewhere else.

1. The Zombadings 1: Patayin Sa Shokot Si Remington! original DVD from Origin8 Media. With ten never-before-seen deleted scenes, trailers, a look behind the scenes, music video, and optional subtitles…in Baklese! (Bekimon/gayspeak).

Php500. Order here.

2. Large basket woven from waterlilies.

Big, sturdy, environmentally-friendly, for groceries, books, construction supplies, small dogs or large cats. About Php500. Text Roger at +63 926 909 9806.

Hello, I am Koosi the cat columnist. You may be wondering what my qualifications are. Well I am a cat and my human is a columnist so cease your pointless questioning.

Cats not only love getting presents, we expect them to arrive constantly. For ten thousand years, ever since my ancestors moved in on human settlements, took up residence in granaries where they demonstrated their amazing pest control skills and got invited into people’s houses soon afterwards, this has been the nature of the feline-human relationship. You give us food, shelter and treats (and built temples to us in Egypt, but that’s another story); we receive them.

Cats have super-hearing so I can hear the gears of your brains shifting and forming the question: What do we get in return for the food, shelter and treats we give you cats? Aha! You are a dog person. Go play with Bantay, Spot, Fifi or whatever his name is. I’m sure you’ll get along wonderfully. Take him for a walk around the park, and don’t forget to bring the gloves and plastic bag for his poop.

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Koosi writes a column in Pet Life in the Philippine Star.

HTTP status cats

At Dongdaemun in Seoul the markets are like Extreme Divisoria, only clean, organized, specialized. There are shops that sell nothing but neckties, shops that do only hats, and shops that have only eyeglass frames as far as the eye can see.

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