JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

Hieronymus Bosch, The Seven Deadly Sins

We don’t have enough contestants, which will put the Yucch-meter in an even fouler mood than usual, so we’re extending the deadline for LitWit Challenge 4.1 to Friday, 16 December 2010 at 12 noon.

We assume that the contestants are (a) stuck in traffic, (b) rehearsing their numbers for the company Xmas variety show and festival of embarrassment, (c) out shopping, (d) comatose from stress, (e) still thinking of a plot involving aliens that hasn’t been done to death, (f) hungover, (g) suffering the ill effects of gluttony.

Now that we think about it, Xmas the season of “peace on earth and goodwill to all men” is also peak season for the seven deadly sins:

Avarice. Presents! Presents! Gimme more presents!

Sloth. You tell yourself that there’s no point in writing that report as no work gets done during the holiday season anyway, but that’s just sloth.

Pride. Year-round offense.

Lust. Daily.

Envy. How come he gets a car and I get a lousy T-shirt?

Gluttony. The lechon was there ten seconds ago.

Wrath. What you feel when you’re standing in a long queue at the ATM and a woman is withdrawing money for 20 people from 20 separate accounts.

Cue Brad Pitt impression: What’s in the baaaax? What’s in the baaaaax?

Now we’re in the mood for some Fincher.

The movie we’re really looking forward to: The Fighter starring Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, Amy Adams, directed by David O. Russell. The one where Wahlberg tries to cop some Pac-Man moves. We love David O. Russell. Three Kings!

Note: Just because it involves extraterrestrials doesn’t mean that your entry has to be a science-fiction story. Just out of contrariness the Yucch-meter would be inclined to favor a story in a realist vein.

1. The still photo setting on my pocket video recorder is a little tricky. Please email me your photos of the Meet & Greet with Jon.
2. Jon is way cuter in person than in photos.
3. I am a midget.

Thanks to listbonne, Elle, ifrico, Jeffrey, Ruth, jules, Watermalong, the chronicler of boredom, brewhuh23, atomic_bum, and Jon for coming to the Meet & Greet at La Cuisine.

Jon has just been named captain of the Manila Nomads rugby team.

Momelia, you were sorely missed. (I didn’t read your message until I got home so we figured you’d stood us up because you were horrible haha.) Apologies to the two who didn’t join the group (I tried to murder their books), but the point of the meet & greet was for the readers to mingle, not have the waiter summon me for a private signing. It takes effort to plan these things you know.

Cacs, bomberman and winespirits, you can pick up your orders at La Cuisine.

Random matters discussed at the meet: Favorite death scenes in movies.

listbonne: John Travolta’s in Phenomenon
brewhuh23: Obi Wan-Kenobi in Star Wars
Me: Boromir in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Jon: Satine in Moulin Rouge

Meet & Greet with Jon, photo from chronicler’s camera.

Favorite Jon stories:

The Hard-Boiled Egg
The 3 Jerks Theory of Rugby, feat. “I thought _____ was a dick.”
Advice from a parent who went to UP to a son going off to college
Kazakhstan rugby
Beijing jejemon accent
Getting tackled by 2 Saunders brothers
Vision problems

Thanks to brewhuh23 for the 3 pairs of camera stud earrings! Here’s one on my giant head.

* * * * *

tehanu, dibee, jeffwar314, Neogorbash, jouvs, jake, roseanna: We just got the shipping costs; the delivery charge will be about P150. Please check your email early tomorrow morning for the bank details. Thanks.

Uro de la Cruz is a director for television (Bubble Gang, Show Me the Manny) and movies (Bahay Ni Lola, Buko Pandan), photographer (RangeFinder Filipinas), screenwriter (Scorpio Nights), and fictionist (Antyng Antyng). A conversation with Uro sounds like this:

– What are you doing now?
– Nothing.
– No Bubble Gang?!
– That, but nothing else.
– No more Manny Pacquiao sitcom?
– Well yes, but really nothing else. . .

Uro’s list:

1. The Autobiography of Mark Twain, the Complete and Authoritative Edition, Volume 1

2. People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks. About the restoration of the Sarajevo Haggadah, one of earliest illuminated Hebrew books.

3. A Loyal Character Dancer by Qiu Xiaolong. A thriller about the disappearance of a Red Chinese dancer. US Marshall Rohn and Inspector Chen investigate.

4. The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason. A “scholastic” thriller about 2 Princeton students solving the mysteries of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, a puzzling Renaissance text.

5. The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking with Leonard Mlodinow, which led me to also read

6. The Evolution of God by Robert Wright. The concept of God viewed through the prism of archaeology, theology, history, and evolutionary psychology.

7. The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Return of Sherlock Holmes, A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

8. A Woman’s Impression of the Philippines by Mary Helen Fee. The memoirs of an American school teacher who came to the Philippines at the turn of the 20th century and worked alongside the Thomasites. She arrived a week before the USS Thomas and prepared the accommodations of the new teachers. She was assigned in Capiz. Some of her observations about the Filipino still ring true today. Funny, amusing, informative and ultimately tragic.

No order, no book! We have spoken. – Saffy the accountant cat

Guess what we’re doing this instant. See you tonight at La Cuisine for the Meet & Greet with Jon. You can pick up your books, have a drink, and ask Jon to explain the meaning of life, the rules of rugby, the semiotics of The Wire, why Tom Waits is The Man, and how you can watch the test matches against Hong Kong in April.

I hate you because you have written a novel I wish I had written.

There are many novels I wish I had written, but I do not hate their authors. There is no point in hating those authors because even if I wish I had written their novels I could not have written them. I do not have the experience, the stamina or the words.

But this, your novel, I have lived. I have been the angry child railing and cringing at the horror of the “grown-up” world. I have known the loneliness so deep that it never hits bottom but keeps on plummeting, desires so fierce they singed everything in their path and reduced me to a column of ash floating off the tip of a cigarette. I lived it, but you wrote it.

I heard myself think, If this book was written by a 20-year-old I quit. But then you referred to The Smiths, The Cure, late Pink Floyd, and I realized you were my age. That at least is a relief. That and the realization that I will always be that angry child, that I will never be one of them.

Thanks to kumagcow for sending this in.