Our Detective

2006-09-20T19:58:00.000+08:00

It's going to be a merry christmas and a happy new year

The next Hannibal Lecter book, which chronicles the life of Lecter as a young man, should be out by Christmas, the NYT said. Yay to Thomas Harris! But the most exciting piece of news is the fact that Gaspard Ulliel, aka the Guy-Opposite-Audrey-Tautou-in-A-Very-Long-Engagement, will be playing the young Hannibal. I just hope that the movie won't suck, as it is produced by blockbuster maker Dino De Laurentis. The last Hannibal movie was botched, I think. David Mamet was writing the screenplay, then pulled out, so that was a loss. I am always ready to give David Mamet my affections.

see it here: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/19/books/19harr.html

Speaking of books, I have joined the merry band of Iain banks fans. TMH (the man himself, as Mr. Banks is called in the forum at www.iainbanks.net) will have a book out early next year. Another yay!

2006-09-14T19:54:00.000+08:00

My Kind of Party

September only means one thing: the Manila International Book Fair. Two weeks ago, I made my pointless pilgrimage. Pointless, because I always don’t have enough money to buy what I need and what I want. Every year is an exercise is masochism and I never learn. The guy who manned the Emerald, the magazine retailer, was amiable. I pointed to the Foreign Affairs journal. It’s P865, the big guy said. But we can give you a 20% discount. No, I said. I need back issues. (They’re usually cheaper. I have two Foreign Affairs journal that cost me P100 each, yay!) Big Guy shook his head, they don’t have back issues. Turns out, they are prohibited to sell the back issues of Foreign Affairs. So I had to ask: what do you do with the unsold magazines? We rip the pages out and sell them to junk shops, Big Guy replied sheepishly. If he wasn’t so apologetic, I would have slapped him. Until now, that conversation depresses me. Those poor magazines, with no one to love them.

The best acquisition of the day? The long-sought, much-needed Economics for Dummies. Now I know what the GDP means.

2006-08-22T19:13:00.000+08:00

The way to healthy lungs and other theories

The greatest thing in this Makati gig is the walking. Once, I walked from Greenbelt to Axa Bldg in Buendia, which took me 20 minutes, approximately. The sun was shining, there was a small breeze, I was listening to The Life Pursuit ( It’s now obvious that it will top my soundtracks-of-the year list, although Camera Obscura’s Let’s Get Out of this Country is a close second.)

I don’t even mind the pollution. It’s annoying, but I have a theory that walking plus pollution equals stronger lungs. Proof: when I went to Kule office last week, I didn’t pause to catch my breath all the way to the fourth floor. My breathing was actually normal. And I was carrying a big bag. Top that!

***
Lab, that weird monkey, was here two weeks ago. Over dinner, he asked me about the migraines. I told him it was nothing; they just changed patterns. But he had another theory: the headaches might be signals from aliens. It’s my mothership way of contacting me. “Hala, Maybe you’re an alien. Maybe you’re not really my cousin after all,” he said.

But would an alien pay for your dinner and make you mix cds full of indiepop goodness? I KNOW I’m the best cousin ever. =)

2006-08-15T17:33:00.000+08:00

The Man Who Outsells Harry Potter

Detective fiction/police procedurals can be gruesome but, I’ve been thinking that they’re quite hopeful. Unlike science fiction, which seeks to familiarize the reader, detective fiction seeks order. Should I go back to the Comparative Literature fold, I’ll do a monograph on the narrative and themes of detective fiction, Henning Mankell in particular. (For those who don’t know it, I’ve been devouring Scandinavian detective fiction for some months now, spurred by an article in The Guardian I read last year).

Speaking of Mankell – he’s a Swede who works as a theater director in South Africa – I’m halfway through his Kurt Wallander novel called The Man Who Smiled.

Wallander, Mankell’s protagonist is an inspector from a small town patterned after Agatha Christie small towns who always finds himself in the middle of international intrigue worthy of a John Le Carre. He’s can be a cross between the detective in the American harboiled tradition and Inspector Wexford of Ruth Rendell: he’s tortured, forlorn and lovelorn. He hates guns and does a lot of internal monologue. He’s in love with a woman who lives in Riga, Latvia who, in turn, is still in love with her dead husband. Wallander doesn’t speak much English, he’s got an inferiority complex and he used to take antidepressants for a year. (The reason for his depression can be read in The White Lioness. I don't want to explain it - it's a spoiler.) He is bitterly divorced. He has a paunch.

From what the Internet has told me, Mankell is a bestseller in Europe, even outselling Harry Potter in some parts of the continent. Yay!

By the way, while writing this entry, I was listening to The Heavy Blinkers’ The Night and I Are Still So Young album. They have songs that remind me of The Carpenters, but they are not as cheesy.

2006-08-07T18:06:00.000+08:00

If You're Feeling Sinister - Again

Inspired by my recent trips to the doctor and for lack of better things to do on a balmy night, I made my dream MRI soundtrack last Sunday. The list probably needs editing, but so what.

1. Honey Cone – Sittin’ On A Time Bomb (Waitin’ for the Hurt to Come)
2. Mates of State – Goods (All in Your Head)
3. The Perishers – Pills
4. Ivy – Clear My Head
5. Red Sleeping Beauty – Sick and Tired
6. Dusty Springfield – I Don’t Know What To Do With Myself
7. Television Personalities – Sick Again
8. Ted Leo and the Pharmacists – Heart Problems
9. The Starlight Mints – What’s Inside of Me?
10. Holly Golightly – Tell Me Now So I Know
11. The High Llamas – Let’s Have Another Look
12. Belle and Sebastian – If You’re Feeling Sinister
13. The Love Letter Band – Doctors Never Love You
14. Emiliana Torrini – Lifesaver
15. The Wannadies – Nothing Wrong

2006-08-02T18:22:00.000+08:00

If You're Feeling Sinister, or Dancing While Lying Still

The doctor asked me if I was scared during the MRI. I said no. It was actually a happy affair, even though I was half-asleep the whole time. Here's what happened:

Before I went in, the MRI technician - I think his name's Rodney - told me that I had to lie still for at least 25 minutes or the pictures of my brain would be blurred. Fine. But I had to ask: Can I use my own music? (I had to risk being perceived as a difficult, diva patient. Otherwise, I would be immersed in the MRI suite's collection of cheesy 1980s lovesongs and 1990s revivals. Think David Pomeranz. And Southborder.) No problem, Rodney said. Yay! Had I known that this was possible, I would have made my own MRI theater soundtrack, which would include The Love Letter Band's Doctors Never Love You and 60's Motown group Honey Cone's Sittin' on a Time Bomb (Waitin' for the Hurt to Come.) Both appropriate songs, indeed. At such short notice, I chose The Life Pursuit. It's bouncy, it's brilliant, it's longer than 25 minutes, I know the lyrics, I won't get bored. I just had to control the urge to dance. Midway through Funny Little Frog, my song of the year, so far, the MRI guys turned off the machine. It's over and done with. I didn't ask Rodney and the other guy if they liked Belle and Sebastian's music or what they thought of it. I was too shy and sleepy. I just hope they enjoyed it as much as I did.

The MRI was clean, by the way. Nothing sinister in there, except my brain.

2006-07-18T17:44:00.000+08:00

I Swear to God

In celebration of my blogname, I'm copying here GK Chesterton's oath administered to members of the British Detection Club. Chesterton was a British writer and a devout Catholic. So devout was he that he created Father Brown, the parish priest who doubles as a detective. Awwww.

"Do you promise that your detectives shall well and truly detect the crimes presented to them using those wits which it may please you to bestow upon them and not placing reliance on nor making use of Divine Revelation, Feminine Intuition, Mumbo Jumbo, Jiggery-Pokery, Coincidence, or Act of God?"

Amen!

2006-07-14T13:32:00.000+08:00

The Keeler Consequences

Last night, I had the worst migraine attack. I imagined the nerves behind right eye being squished and pinched. I couldn’t feel my left arm and my left peripheral vision was blurred. Anything that concerns my nerves and vision scare the hell out of me. I was ready to vomit and keel over but I stopped myself – I couldn’t do that in the middle of Makati Avenue. I called home and said I’m checking myself to a hospital. I must have sounded scared because the parent said, just go and take a taxi. And DONT panic.

Anyway, the doctor knew that I’m a migraine sufferer. He also said I looked stressed out so I only needed some rest. The blurred vision and the numbness are normal manifestations (it was the first time that it ever happened to me). My blood pressure was normal and so was my sugar level. He gave me a painkiller that also doubles as an anti-inflammatory – it’s my new painkiller of choice; I have become a painkiller connoisseur - and told me to take a rest. He also forbid me to eat chocolates and drink coffee, the two known migraine triggers. The chocolates, I could deal with; I have no desire for it in the first place anyway. But the coffee! I have been a coffee drinker since I was eleven! If I don’t drink my brewed coffee in the morning, I go into withdrawal, I become half-paralyzed. Come, on. Just one cup? In the morning? I pleaded. Okay, one cup. He sighed. But you know the consequences.

PS.
This morning, the migraine problem was replaced by new concerns: how to get hold of the new Camera Obscura single. They released their cover version of Sheena Easton’s Modern Girl. My laptop is shot and I can’t connect it to the net. Hmm. What to do, what to do?

2006-07-11T19:05:00.000+08:00

It's 7:15 pm and I'm still in the office because of this:

Indie-mp3.co.uk has released the C06 to celebrate the 20th birthday of the seminal NME 1986 cassette compilation, later known as C86, which gave birth to what people now call indiepop music and its variants. The track listing:

01 - The Love Letter Band - This World Is Not My Home
02 - Mon Fio - Alexis
03 - Apple Orchard - A Hiding Smile
04 - Celestial - Dream On
05 - Santa Dog - Rosa
06 - Umlaut - Lea Green
07 - A Place To Bury Strangers - Dont Think Lover
08 - Chuzzlewit - Verga
09 - Loveninjas - Keep Your Love
10 - Rocket Punch - Pink Cashmere
11 - Shrugged - Tattooed Heart
12 - Crumb - Follow Me Home
13 - Pelle Carlberg - Clever Girls
14 - Compute - Every Chance
15 - Bib - I Wanna Be A Better
16 - Bobby Baby - Lucky Moments
17 - Goof - Dancing Shoes
18 - Sarandon - Meet Warren
19 - Bubblegum Lemonade - Tyler
20 - Michael Knight - Waves To The Shore
21 - The Sweethearts - Into The Woods
22 - The Factory Owners - Elephants Mean Death
23 - Cowboy X - Gabbi
24 - Math And Physics Club - Movie Ending Romance

Get the copy at www.indie-mp3.co.uk. Or if you're a friend of mine, just holler back and I'll burn a copy for you.

2006-07-11T18:56:00.000+08:00

New Aches

For those wanting an update on my unhealthy lifestyle, the Back Pains are still here. They have a new companion, though, and it's called Toothache. And what doesn't hurt, doesn't work.

2006-07-05T18:44:00.001+08:00

you had it in you

I have been having back problems lately. If I turn a certain way, pain shoots up my back. Sometimes, when I am just sitting, a stinging, electric pain would jolt me. My posture has always been shot and for the past eight months, I have been lugging a heavy backpack so the backaches are not really that surprising. (I don’t bring my laptop anymore, so that’s a relief.) I had it coming. Aisa had given me the name of a chiropractor in Makati but I don’t have the time to see him yet. I want to practice yoga or tai chi – been wanting to do tai chi since college - to correct the posture problem, but that too, demands time. And I right now, I don’t even have the time to brush my hair.

2006-06-30T17:50:00.000+08:00

The Pancho and Judy Show

We were bullshitting with Pancho. Bea asked him if still remembers me; the last time I saw him he was still a boy. Now at eleven, he’s built like a barrel and has no neck to speak of. His sentences are peppered with American slang. (The prizes are so lame! No, Ate Bea, YOU shut up!) It's the cartoons, Bea said. I told Pancho he should apply for a call center job; with his twang, he could be rich at age 13.

“Okay, what’s my first name?” I asked Pancho. He looked at me, head cocked on one side. After a beat, he said, “Judy.”

Darn it. And I thought I was a Mary. Hah. Oh, well. At least Belle and Sebastian and The Pipettes have written songs for girls named Judy.

Speaking of girls named Judy, I should call Judy from the Palace to see if she’s got any news and to tell her this story.

2006-06-27T19:18:00.000+08:00

Joel, don’t hate me. This is for you.

Due to incessant public demand and Jeeu’s appeal, my blog is now up. Joel, the ex-co-worker and deskmate, would probably call me a traitor, so I’m asking for his forgiveness and I am dedicating this first entry to him. (Honestly, I don't know if I can sustain this; I have always been a pessimist.) Before I forget, let me make this clear. There are only two things in life that I was peer-pressured into doing: friendster, and now, this, blogging. So God help us all. XOXO, k