JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

Caption this.

We’re accepting entries until noon tomorrow. Read the entries by two of our regular winners, Momelia and johnbristol6.

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While trying to avoid the latest findings in the Ramgen Revilla murder case we ran headlong into the news that John Lloyd Cruz had broken up with his girlfriend. Which got us to wondering: How do you break up with a famous boyfriend or girlfriend?

Well what about your literary boyfriend or girlfriend?

This being the Weekly LitWit Challenge, we would write them a letter.

So in this week’s challenge you’re going to break up with your literary lover. Raskolnikov, Clarissa, Bruce Wayne, Bathsheba Everdene, Gimli son of Gloin (Gimli son of Gloin?), Morgan Le Fay, the Vicomte de Valmont…whoever they are, you’re through with them.

In 1,000 words or less, write a letter to your literary boyfriend or girlfriend declaring that you have fallen out of love with them and expelling them from your life. Cram it with juicy details, make us believe that your literary romance is real. (Edward, I can put up with your surliness but I cannot condone locking up your wife in the attic, I do not care how bonkers she is.) The most hysterical letter wins.

Post your letter in Comments by 12 noon on Sunday, 13 November 2011. The prize consists of two books:

The Guinness Book of World Records 2012 and The Best American Short Stories 2011.

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

Yes, Junot Diaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and winner of the Pulitzer. He will be in town next week for the Manila Literary Festival. We were supposed to do an interview but due to the schedule changes we’ve had to cancel (We have a job out of town). Xandra from National Bookstore will relay our questions to Junot Diaz, so post yours pronto.

Junot Diaz will have a book-signing on Monday, 14 November, 6pm at Powerbooks in Greenbelt. Meet the author, have your copies of Oscar Wao and Drown signed, try not to grovel too much. And take lots of photos so we can see what we’ve missed.

FYI Junot Diaz has written about Filipino restaurants in New York and expressed a fondness for sisig.

Eighty people showed up. Massive relief as we expected ten. (Admittedly the ideal number would’ve been zero. We don’t like parties. Crowds in general make us go into lockdown unless it is a concert.) To ensure attendance we considered inviting celebrities but decided to keep it amongst ourselves. This party was for our readers; we don’t know if those people read.

Our fifth anniversary event was hosted by Jump Experience Center, a showcase of convergent technologies from PLDT and Smart and a high-visibility platform for strategic brand marketing and communications. Thank you, Jump, for hosting the party. We really liked the bar chow.

Since our site has turned five we presented five awards to friends and readers, beginning with Best Transition from Old School to New Media to National Bookstore. National Bookstore continues to make books easily accessible and affordable to the general public while building up its online presence and preparing for the next stage in the evolution of publishing. The award was accepted by National Bookstore’s Xandra Ramos Padilla and Miguel Ramos.

We handed the Awaaard for Best Use of Digital Technology to Raymond Lee, executive producer, writer, and tireless promoter of the surprise indie hit Zombadings 1: Patayin Sa Shokot Si Remington. In the photo: Raymond with our friend Jerome Gomez, managing editor of Esquire, whom we hijacked on his way to his birthday dinner. Happy Birthday, Jerome! As Raymond noted, his birthday is on the 10th day of the 11th month and he has 12 digits on his hands.

L-R: Stella, balqis, listbonne and Brewhuh23. Brewhuh23 is the recipient of our Best Online Stalker Researcher award for her unparalleled skill at rooting out people’s deep, dark secrets. If you have a crush on anyone, Brewhuh23 will find the information that will de-crush you instantly. Seriously, we’re going to open a detective agency. Note hoop earrings so large she can never wear them on the MRT.

The Readers’ Choices for Best Subject/Columnist and Best Commenter were determined through online voting. For Best Subject/Columnist you picked our indefatigable agony aunt Auntie Janey, who will not show her face lest those who have followed her prescriptions chase her with an ax. For Best Commenter there could be only one: Momelia our resident tattooed badass.

With his super-sight Momelia spotted an interesting-looking guest. “Si Sam Milby ba yon?” he demanded. (Brewhuh23 thought it was Joem Bascon.) It was in fact one of our LitWit winners, Evan, who is also in our Reading Group for The Sense of an Ending. Talent scouts, please leave your contact information in Comments.

Class picture: The last to leave the party. Thank you for showing up. Socializing in large groups wherein we are the featured entertainment is not one of our favorite activities, but you make it comparatively painless. Special thanks to Jackie O for the wine. And Miguel for the signed Walking Dead, Kim for the book (We confess we never liked Sylvia Plath and prefer Ted Hughes actually), Stella for the Eye of Sauron and Jules for the Kahlua.

Thanks to Smart for the raffle prizes: the Netphone 701 went to the chronicler of boredom and the Samsung Galaxy Y went to our friend, journalist Stella Arnaldo. We swear that the raffle was not rigged. When we saw their names in the fishbowl we tried to avoid them but they kept coming up.

What is the theme of this sequence?

Photo collage by Jaime Zobel

Painting by Igan D’Bayan

Sarcastic eyeglasses. Photo by Noel Orosa.

A. Escalating violence
B. Evolution of death metal
C. Scary, scarier, scariest
D. What will happen if you don’t show up tonight.

Jessica Rules the Universe marks its fifth anniversary with a party tonight, 6:30 – 8:30 pm, at Jump Experience Center.

All registered readers of this site are invited.

Jump Experience Center is at Cyberzone on the 4th floor of SM Megamall Building B.

Cocktails will be served.

The year-long 25th anniversary celebration of the Philippine Star continues with a joint exhibition by Jaime Zobel and Igan D’Bayan at the Ayala Museum. D’Bayan thrives on shock value: exploding heads, deliquescing corpses, things seen on the covers of death metal LPs. Hmmm. But the real shock is what happens when Zobel applies his austere, formal approach to street art.

Zobel-D’Bayan is open to the public till Sunday November the 13th on the ground floor of the Ayala Museum.