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The Yucch-meter finds that they are paralyzed with dread at the thought of reading the submissions for LitWit Challenge 4.4. They are simply not in the mood. To force the Yucch-meter to evaluate the entries in these circumstances would place the contestants in dire peril. How dire?

Ever seen one of our favorite childhood movies, Marathon Man, adapted from his own novel by William Goldman, directed by John Schlesinger, and starring Dustin Hoffman, Roy Scheider and Laurence Olivier? Olivier plays Dr. Zell, “The White Angel”.

“That nerve is almost dead. We’ll just drill into a healthy tooth. Is it safe?” Drill. “Is it safe?” Drill.

He is almost as cruel as Darren Aronofsky (The Black Swan) is to his protagonists.

If a precedent is set it would have to be followed. That might be funny, but most certainly unpleasant.

Therefore the Yucch-meter has requested that on this occasion you, Reader, do the heavy lifting and decide which entry deserves this week’s prize. Post your choice in Comments, and explain why it is more worthy (or less bloodcurdling) than the others. Your votes will be accepted until tomorrow, Tuesday, at 11.59 pm.

There being no set criteria in these contests we cannot fault you for choosing a winner on the basis of looks or for selling your vote for Chickenjoy. However we may yet see if there is such a thing as “the wisdom of crowds”.

This is how organized my reading habit is. First I decided to restart my Russian project (to read the major Russian novels) which was interrupted last year when my hardcover The Brothers Karamazov would not fit in the seat pocket of the plane to New Zealand. It had to be stashed in the overhead bin where I could not open it during the 10-hour flight. These are the details that break your resolve.

And then I saw a trailer for the upcoming HBO series A Game of Thrones, based on the fantasy novels by George R.R. Martin. Which I haven’t read. Which tempted me by not being available in the three bookstores where I asked for them. Which appeared in front of me the next time I looked. It’s a sign, I always say. Of what, I have no idea. . .

Looking for Black Spring in Emotional Weather Report, today in the Philippine Star.

Did Galileo get his ideas from disproving the measurements of Dante’s Inferno?

Gustave Dore’s illustrations for Dante’s Divine Comedy.

In 1588, when Galileo was a 24-year-old unknown, a medical school dropout, he was invited to deliver a couple of lectures on Dante’s “Divine Comedy.” Many in Galileo’s audience would have been shocked, even dismayed, to see this young upstart take the stage and start poking holes in what they believed about the poet’s meticulously constructed fantasy world.

Ever since its 1314 publication, scholars had toiled to map the physical features of Dante’s Inferno — the blasted valleys and caverns, the roiling rivers of fire. What Galileo said, put simply, is that many commonly accepted dimensions did not stand up to mathematical scrutiny. Using complex geometrical analysis, he attacked a leading scholar’s version of the Inferno’s structure, pointing out that his description of the infernal architecture — such as the massive cylinders descending to the center of the Earth — would, in real life, collapse under their own weight. . .

Read Measuring Hell by Chris Wright in the Boston Globe.

The Catcher in the Rye did not make Mark David Chapman kill John Lennon. The Catcher in the Rye did not make John Hinckley shoot President Ronald Reagan, nor did Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver despite those letters the gunman wrote to Jodie Foster. They shot people because they were crazy.

To try to make sense of the senseless, the media has analyzed the favorite books list in the YouTube profile page of the suspect in the Arizona shooting rampage. Pundits cite the presence on the list of anti-government novels such as Animal Farm and Fahrenheit 451 as possible clues to the gunman’s state of mind.

George Orwell and Aldous Huxley did not pull the trigger. Neither did Homer, Karl Marx, or Plato, and while it would be convenient to blame the deaths on Hitler even he didn’t do it. The freak with the gun killed those people in Arizona. Books didn’t turn him into a freak. But there is a likely connection between the books and the freak’s mindset: He read them out of context. He took them literally. Literalism Kills.

Photo: Morgan Freeman at the library in Se7en.

What worries me is that some numbskull will propose to ban the books on the list. Riiight, save the people by making them stupid. (This reminds me that when we saw the movie Seven the scariest part—after the room full of pine air fresheners—was the bit about the FBI flagging certain books in the public library.)

As for those numbskulls who censored Huckleberry Finn, our only response can be What The Fuck.

The writer John Irving with Dr. Joven Cuanang at Pinto Art Museum in Grand Heights, Antipolo. Photos by JZ.

The Irvings Everett, 19, and John.

There is no use pretending that you’ve read more of John Irving’s work than you really have: he will catch you. Not only that, but he will lay a trap, said his son Everett, 19. “Do you remember that part in the book where Fergus dies?” John Irving might ask an interviewer. “Yes, of course,” the interviewer bluffs. “I didn’t write that,” says the author of The World According to Garp, The Cider House Rules, and ten more novels. Snap.

The Condensed John Irving in Emotional Weather Report, today in the Philippine Star.

Poster by Rickyv, based on the original movie poster

We are huge fans of Dakota Fanning. She’s a 40-year-old woman in the body of a 16-year-old. As Noel likes to point out, at age 10 she was flirting with Denzel Washington in Man on Fire. She’s played 500-year-old vampires (the Twilight series) and wasted rock stars (The Runaways). Dakota Fanning can do anything. She’ll be gunning for the Helen Mirren/Judi Dench roles next.

Just when we thought Dakota was the peak of precocity, we learned that There Is Another Fanning! Elle, 12, who stars in Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, little Dakota has a Mini-Me!

Given them five years and they’ll be ready to remake the Bette Davis-Joan Crawford classic.