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Chloe is Boboy and James’s Pomeranian. If you say “Kong hei fat choi” she does this.

This song has been playing in my head since our dinner. Help, I’m in a 90s time warp. Here, have some Last Song Syndrome.

Under-the-table view of my friends and I at lunch.

We were having lunch at Chateau in Greenbelt when there was a disturbance in The Force.

“Aha!” I said, “Several rugby players are at Bubba Gump. I should say Hi. Who wants to come with me?”

Silence fell over the table.

“Hindi ako handa,” said The Count.

“I’m not ready,” Ernie translated.

“This is more your thing, really,” Bert added.

“What is this world coming to that baklas refuse an introduction to rugby players?” I asked.

“Go, go, we’ll be at Prada.”

From left: Jake Letts (captain), Jon (Jon, not John, not Jhon) Morales, Ken Stern, Rupert Zappia, Andrew Wolff (Two Fs! How hard is it to remember that?), Oliver Saunders (misidentified in the A5N video as Chris Everingham), Chris Hitch, Chris Everingham.
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As everyone has gone into vacation mode including ourselves, we are accepting entries to LitWit Challenge 6.8 until 12 noon on Wednesday, 31 August 2011. Meanwhile enjoy turmukoy’s excellent Danaerys story in the form of a letter to Auntie Janey Xerex. (Rated NC-17, read in Comments).

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From the HBO series: Robb and Bran with their direwolf pups.

For his sprawling fantasy epic A Song of Ice and Fire George R.R. Martin has been called The American Tolkien. We love the Westeros novels and approve of the HBO series; we’ll even condone Martin’s readiness to kill off major protagonists we are fond of as long as that sexy dwarf Tyrion Lannister makes it to the end.

This week we’re giving away a brand new (with that fresh ink smell!) copy of the newly-released fifth volume of SIAF, A Dance With Dragons. If you were wondering at the absence of our beloved Tyrion and our candidate for the true king Jon Snow from the fourth volume A Feast For Crows, it’s because the events in DWD were supposed to be included in the fourth book. However, Mr. Martin decided to divide the fourth book in two—a wise decision as the whole volume would’ve caused shelves to crash everywhere. The division explains why the events in DWD are simultaneous with those in FFC.

(DWD also reveals the fate of one you have wished ill upon since the third volume, a fate so horrendous you find yourself pitying him. And then Martin spins it so you actually start rooting for him. That’s impressive.)

A Dance With Dragons weighs in at 1,020 pages and is thick enough to serve as an extra coffee table. Do you want this book? Of course you do. Yes the e-book is lighter but it won’t tone your biceps, stop doors (or bullets), or signal to other Song of Ice and Fire devotees that you inhabit their universe.

We bow to GRRM’s mastery of plot, but find much of the prose a bit cringe-worthy. Then again, we wish there were more action in In Search of Lost Time, because Marcel Proust does go on about madeleines.

Your assignment: In 1,000 words or less, rewrite any scene from the SIAF books in your own words. The finding of the direwolf pups? Danaerys’s controversial wedding night? The “crowning” of that bitch Viserys? The shocking killing we didn’t think would happen until we read/saw it?

Post your entry in Comments on or before Sunday, 28 August 2011 at 11.59pm.

This year’s model barbarian: Jason Momoa. As Khal Drogo in Game of Thrones or as Conan the Barbarian in the new movie, Jason Momoa makes all other men look like little girls.

P.S. Our cats wear the colors of the Great Houses. Koosi, being blonde, is a Lannister. Saffy, dark, is Stark. Mat, white, is Targaryen.

P.P.S. Yes, you may write yourself into the novels. So bring on your weddings to Khal Drogo, Jon Snow, Robb Stark, Jaime Lannister, Jorah Mormont (We know someone), Loras Tyrell, Sansa Stark, Asha Stark, Cersei Lannister or the madwoman breastfeeding her four-year-old.

The Weekly LitWit Challenge is brought to you by our friends at National Bookstore.

My column in the Star today.

Photos from the author’s website, www.edmunddewaal.com.

Netsuke are Japanese ornaments no bigger than a matchbox, finely detailed, light but tough, carved in wood and ivory. Their subjects are wide-ranging and unexpected. Animals, of course: a brindled wolf, a ruffled dragon leaning on a rock, a stag scratching its ear with a hind leg. People caught in mid-movement: two acrobats tumbling, a cooper making a barrel, a woman bathing in a tub. Still objects: a medlar fruit ripe to the point of deliquescence, a bundle of kindling tied with a rope. So much care and effort invested on a very small thing that will be used as a toggle on a cloth bag, or suspended from the sash of a kimono. They are so easily lost, left in the pocket of a jacket that gets sent to the dry-cleaners, thrown away with a crumpled receipt. These objects, so losable, are all that remain of a vast fortune.

But this is not one of those tales of bygone eras and lost glamour. What could’ve been another foray into the nostalgia industry was averted when the netsuke fell into the hands of a potter. For who would understand more fully how things are made, handled and handed on than someone who makes things?
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You don’t need a gaydar for this one, I vouch for Raymond’s gayness. Please watch his movie. Zombadings opens Wednesday.

4. In Zombadings 1: Patayin Sa Shokot Si Remington, someone is zapping all the gay men in town with a raygun. But how does the raygun know whom to zap?

How can you tell a homosexual from a heterosexual? Many of us have gaydars, highly specialized neurons that determine on sight if a guy is someone we could date, or someone we will have a hair-pulling match with over Michael Fassbender.

Unfortunately, our gaydars are constantly being challenged by rapid changes in perceptions of sexuality. It no longer follows that a guy wearing a low V-neck shirt and skinny pants is gay. Maybe he’s just fashionable, or maybe he’s totally secure in his heterosexuality.

Let us examine the traditional indicators and how they are letting us down.

Read my column in interaksyon.com.

Dear Auntie Janey,

Yours sincerely,
Worried Sister

Johnny Depp is not an eldest child.
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