My sinuses have been acting up because of this horrible, evil weather. Hot to moist to rain to cold to hot and moist and back again, back and forth, really quickly. It’s hell. My voice is lower most of the time, no one I talk to on the phone has the faintest idea what I’m saying, and most of the time I’m breathing through my mouth or suffering agonizing headaches and just try to go to sleep. It’s a wonder I’m not dead yet from some car crash.

As such, I have been ingesting a variety of drugs, from typical paracetamol to prevent fever to flanax for the pain to my lovely motrin-s for my headaches and sudafed for the clogged tubing that used to be my nostrils, and that medicine whose name I can’t remember that suppresses the feeling of wanting to vomit immediately after eating. Wonderful.

And so, this post will have no cohesion or unity.

“There's this big government project in Nevada, for artists to create a sculpture that will be frightening enough to keep people away from the nuclear-waste dump for the next 10,000 years. Supposedly, there's never been a form of semantics, a language, that has existed that long. They're trying to find something that will function as language beyond our civilization, that will keep people away from there forever and ever. I just think that's a glorious idea.” -- Chuck Palahniuk

There’s a Chuck Palahniuk interview online at The Onion AV Club. A lot of quotable quotes, two of which are below. I love Palahniuk; his new novel Lullaby is out now in HC and I’d buy it if I were rich but I’m not, so I’ll wait for the paperback. If you’ve read his novels you know it takes all of 2 minutes to finish them so that’s another reason I don’t exactly want to spend more than 1000 pesos on his new book. I am willing to spend something like that for Michael Chabon’s new book Summerland, however, since it’s 500 pages (thankfully, it’s something like 600 bucks, I think). Even if I’m willing, though, I still don’t have the money. Anyway, back to Palahniuk. His novels make me think, and that’s probably more than I can say about most other novels. Of course, different books have different purposes. Sometimes you buy something because you know what’s in it and you want to be entertained. But Palahniuk’s novels seem to be great mind-opening timebombs that percolate in your head for a while and then explode with possibilities not at the moment that you’re reading, but maybe later on after you’ve put down the book and are doing something else. You may be in line for a movie, for example, and something will occur to you that relates to what you read, and then boom, your mind’s racing. Mostly you tend to wonder what a ridiculously stupid species we are. In that way, Palahniuk’s novels are what you expect, and more. It’s also quite interesting to find out that he’s involved with the Cacophony Society, a rambunctious group of malcontents (is there any other kind?) I first read about in the pages of Bikini magazine.

And no, you’re thinking the wrong thing. Bikini was a sister publication of Raygun when it was still under Marvin Scott Jarrett: a cool, square-sized magazine that almost always had interesting features and articles and graphic design and photography and attitude. Not snobbish but not stupid, either. I miss it. I miss Raygun too. I miss when there were interesting magazines that were affordable. There’s no magazine that jumps to mind that’s worth buying regularly. Well, RES and Filmmaker and Sight and Sound, but they’re not available here, and they’d be expensive, too. I wish this country had at least one mag that was a beautiful object: well-written articles on interesting subjects, relevant subjects, that didn’t pander to a culture of idiots but didn’t suck its own dick all the time either. Maybe the closest thing is actually Flip, but for some reason I can’t pinpoint it feels like a magazine for old people. The generation right above me. I don’t know why. Whereas the majority of magazines produced here are just not worth the trees they kill to print it. Horrible trash and garbage and filth that keeps bad writers fed and makes them feel like they’re doing something right.

It’s all so sad. Is my personal taste really so weird? Or am I just being especially anti-social today?

Anyway, on to the quotables:

O: What's the strangest confession you've heard?
CP: [Laughs.] This is one of my favorites. I was in London last summer, and a guy came up at one of the readings, beforehand, and he said, "I loved what you wrote [in Fight Club] about doing stuff to celebrities' food, because I work at a five-star restaurant, and we do stuff to celebrities' food all the time." That's no surprise to me, because all my friends have stories. And I go, "Who? Tell me somebody," and he says, "I can't, it's a five-star restaurant." I refused to sign his book until he would tell me one person. And he gets really quiet, and then he says, "Margaret Thatcher has eaten my sperm." I was just stunned. It must have been the look on my face, but he got this little smile, and he goes, "At least five times." That is a story that—my God, you can make a whole room full of people put down their forks when you tell that story.

The Santa Rampage that Palahniuk discusses here is probably the best-known and biggest event of the Cacophony Society:

O: And what's the Santa Rampage?
CP: There's usually one host city that different chapters from around the world go to for one weekend, usually about two weeks before Christmas. Everybody arrives dressed as Santa Claus, using the name "Santa Claus," and the host city usually has two to three days of continuous events. People drink and party and sing, and disrupt big benefit parties, and are basically public nuisances. But the fact that there's 400 of them all in red makes them this stunning sort of moving artwork. They call it "The Red Tide." It's really beautiful. When I did it in '96, at one point it was all these Santas against this SWAT team of cops, because the Santas wanted to get into a shopping center that was private property. It was so beautiful to see all these blue policemen juxtaposed with all these red Santas, and all these crying kids that were like, "Why are you beating up on Santa?"

Something here for Joey.

Goddamn, now the Republicans are in control of both houses.

Here are some pics from the Friday night dinner with Ate Cyn and Arnold:(pics c/o Cyn)

My chin disappears. And Neva's the only one with a straight face.



Hey, I almost look normal in this one.



Aww...



Those Cheshire grins spell trouble for the unsuspecting children of Manila, I tell you.



The happy couples.

Last night we were at the Fashionista Best Model Search 2002, which, to be honest, was quite boring after the first few times you see the finalists. There was no talent portion, or Q & A; the highlight of the evening was the cool videos Furball made for them. Props to Edsel for not going insane editing three different tapes for three monitors stacked on top of one another. Dos was one of the finalists, and he won Best Body and 1st Runner-Up. Alia stole his picture and I’ll have it scanned and send it to my high school class mailing list promptly. Oh, and me and Neva’ll see Dos and Duckee this Friday. Duckee was Neva’s officemate when they were still being squeezed dry by ABS-CBN. Mich’s clothes were cool, and Sarah Meier wore Mich’s dress all night as she judged. I didn’t know how it’d look on her but it did suit her, especially with the hair thing. They took photos, and Chris, I’m sure, is a very happy man.

Fact: 5% of all men are monogamous, yet more women cheat on their partners than men.