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Working conditions in my house, originally uploaded by 160507.

Saffy, my black-orange-and-white cat, is adept at planting and removing things from my bag. She likes extracting hair bands and playing soccer with them all over the house. Once, at a meeting, I reached into my bag to get my notebook and found the TV remote control Saffy had hidden there. I’m lucky there are no mice in my apartment, or she might enclose a souvenir. (Note: If your cats bring you dead mice, roaches, or other things they’ve killed, be sure to act pleased. They are offering it to you as a gift. On the other hand, there was a time when Koosi would “kidnap” small stuffed animals and drop them in the toilet bowl. Was she drowning them, or studying buoyancy?)

Whenever Saffy wishes to make known that I have been neglecting her, she scratches up a book. Somehow she always chooses a favorite book—can she detect my scent on the paper?—and shreds the dust jacket. For maximum effect, she does this while I am watching.

“In Lust in Translation, Pamela Druckerman romps through ten countries in search of statistics and stories from the philandering class. Her quest to understand “the rules of infidelity from Tokyo to Tennesee” began while reporting for the Wall Street Journal in Argentina, where she was casually propositioned by a slew of married men. . .”

Hmm, there’s no chapter on the Philippines. I think we should address that lack. Got any stories? Post them. Don’t use real names. Maybe we can get a book out of this.

The fifth and final season of HBO’s The Wire begins. From the NYT: No Happy Ending in Dickensian Baltimore. 

“This series’s greatest distinction is perhaps the very thing that chases away broad popularity and peer recognition: ‘‘The Wire’’ traces the interlaced lives of drug dealers and police officers, and both sides of the street receive equal time and consideration. No other series has as many African-American characters, and some of most richly conceived ones fall into categories — drug dealers, convicts and addicts — that violate television’s taboo against racial profiling. By defying the very stereotypes it perpetuates, the show confounds easy viewing. And in the inverted logic of ‘‘The Wire,’’ failure is its own success, a badge of honor in a decaying and dishonorable world. The series’s creators never received the acclaim their work deserves, and there are no lasting victories on ‘‘The Wire,’’ just glimmers of success that tease out hope only to be quickly and brutally squelched.”

Next week I’m going to sit down with coffee and doughnuts and watch four seasons of The Wire. Then I’m going to read Stalin: In the Court of the Red Tsar by Simon Sebag Montefiore. I’ll call it my Humanity: Dontcha Love It? Week.

The talent. The bone structure. The intelligence. The ability to make shoes by hand. Daniel Day Lewis: The perfectionist in The Daily Telegraph. “I don’t rehearse if I can help it. In talking a character through, you define it. And if you define it, you kill it dead.”

Remember this scene from The Last of The Mohicans?
Cora (Madeleine Stowe): What are you looking at, Sir?
Hawkeye (DDL): I’m looking at you, Miss.
All the women at the cinema pass out.

I cannot wait to see There Will Be Blood, I don’t care if he plays a greedy corrupt oilman. Loved him as Bill the Butcher. And I actually rented the laser disc of Eversmile, New Jersey, in which he played a motorcycling dentist in Patagonia. It sounds funny. It wasn’t.

Twisted8, originally uploaded by 160507.

Have you bought a copy of Twisted8 yet? Because if you have, you can join this contest.

What is the item mentioned on page 45? First to post the answer wins the actual item. Hint: It is not a person or a dvd.

Twisted8 is now available at Powerbooks and National Bookstores. Cover price: P250. It will soon be sold at A Different Bookstore and Fully Booked shops. If Twisted8 is not available at a National Bookstore or Powerbooks store near you, please alert us in Comments. To schedule a reading/signing, email zeusbooks.twisted8@gmail.com.

Ding!ding!ding! We have a winner. The correct answer is a yoyo. C. Tan wins the yoyo, but I will mail a postcard by Ige Ramos to everyone who answered ‘yoyo’ before 18.54. Please email your postal addresses to zeusbooks.twisted8@gmail.com.

A little town in Austria, originally uploaded by 160507.

Thanks to the lifetime underachiever, who really exerted himself by forwarding the above along with these questions:

What are the residents called?
What are the mothers called?
What would you be learning at the Fucking High School?
Does the Fucking Hospital help you with anything else?
If your friend came from another town, he wouldn’t be your Fucking friend.