JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

We’re skulking around bookstores waiting for a copy of In Love by Alfred Hayes to turn up.

What is the true practical use of a breakup book? When an important relationship ends you imagine you are in a completely singular situation, that no one else has endured quite the exact exquisitely painful situation that you are currently muddling through. You intuitively believe that your feelings are unique, sui generis, but it is somehow reassuring or uplifting to stumble on evidence that they are not. The pleasure of listening to certain songs or reading certain books is that, after an obligatory and useful period of disorienting isolation, they welcome you back into the human circle. It is oddly reassuring to see that you are not unique, i.e., alone, that this same tragedy has befallen other people, and they have mysteriously survived. (As Shakespeare put it: “Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not from love.”)

What follows is my list of the three all-time best breakup books:

Read The Best Breakup Books by Katie Roiphe in Slate.

Tune in tomorrow for the July LitWit Challengel

After we walked out of The Lone Ranger (It wasn’t as bad as we thought, but as far as we could tell it had no reason to exist), we wandered around the National Bookstore flagship in Glorietta 2. Beside the Illy Cafe on the ground floor is an Umbra store-within-store. Umbra is a Canadian houseware brand (Umbro is an English sportswear label) specializing in slightly whimsical items like the whiteboard globe above.

You can write reminders to yourself on the globe (It comes with an erasable marker) and feel like the ruler of the planet.

We also spotted some ring holders, which we need to dissuade the cats from playing football with our rings. The ring holders come in assorted animal shapes: these are the cat and the octopus.

Voila, our rings have been organized.

Memosphere whiteboard globe, Php1,000; Cat and Octopus ring holders, Php500 each at Umbra in National Bookstore Glorietta 2.

Bert noted that My Husband’s Lover has achieved something Brokeback Mountain didn’t: create a real love team.

The original plan was to do a podcast with Tom Rodriguez and Dennis Trillo. We sent the request to our friends at GMA Network, who said they’d be happy to make arrangements, but scheduling would be problematic. True enough, Tom and Dennis have not had time for a podcast. The producers said the best approach would be for us to hang around during the taping of My Husband’s Lover, and do the interview during the lulls.

Unfortunately we’ve already spent too much time on film sets this year, and the thought of waiting hours and hours for a chance at a 15-minute conversation under less than optimal conditions does not appeal to us. We’ve been interviewing people since high school, our patience for waiting for subjects has expired.

Digression. Can be skipped. [True, when we were doing cover stories for Woman Today magazine back in college, we used the waiting time to read books. We read most of the books on our Comparative Lit syllabus while waiting for Nora Aunor (You need Dostoevski for the wait, though it was worth it), Maricel Soriano (She said, “Is that all you have, the same old questions?”—a valid point because we never read Jingle Extra Hot and other showbiz magazines, being under the delusion that we were writing for Rolling Stone), and Sarsi Emmanuelle (The interview was interrupted by a phone call informing her that her friend Pepsi Paloma had killed herself; she freaked out and had to be sedated). Yeah, we read Ulysses while waiting to interview various actresses whose career would not last until its final page. So these days when we go for an interview we’d like an exact starting time. (We’re not in showbiz, we don’t have to be liked.)]

Then we heard that Tom Rodriguez was a graphic artist and had been to Comic-Con, and it occurred to us that we could interview him via email. Which is not as much fun as a podcast, but better than nothing. We asked the producers and they said it was feasible.

Do you have questions for Tom Rodriguez? Please post them in Comments and we’ll send him the lot next week. These are the questions we have so far, courtesy of our friends Ernie and Bert.

Bert: Mahal mo ba ako?
Ernie: What is the gayest thing about you?
Us: Which comic book character would you like to draw?
Bert: What is the straightest thing about you?
Ernie: How naked have you been in photos and where can we see them?
Bert: If you were gay, which guy would you go for: a. Dennis Trillo, b. Victor Basa, c. Roi Vinzons.

Also, did you know that Chanda Romero, who plays Eric’s mother, had a relationship with Bernardo Bernardo, who is gay? And if you did, did you ask her for tips on how to deal with the situation?

We want your questions!

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Stop the presses! We’ve just realized that we have no idea how straight guys regard My Husband’s Lover. Could our straight guy readers let us know what they think of the show?

Probably to distinguish it from the earlier Wolverine, the new movie featuring your favorite self-regenerating berserker mutant comes with a definite article. He’s not A wolverine or just any wolverine or D’Wolverine, but The Wolverine.

We’ll spare you the synopsis sprinkled with backstory and citations demonstrating the reviewer’s in-depth knowledge of the material and general disdain of previous attempts to bring assorted mutants to the screen. (The opposite approach being the “I’m a serious critic and too good for this juvenile drivel”.) We will say that it’s compelling in the old-fashioned Hollywood movie-making way rather than the superhero franchise way we’ve become accustomed to in recent years. There are intense fight sequences and intriguing characters. And we get a kick out of the fact that Hugh Jackman who plays The Wolverine can not only out-fight, but also out-sing and out-dance his enemies if he cared to. (Is that his real body, with the veins? Yes, it is.)

Directed by James Mangold (Girl, Interrupted; the 3:10 to Yuma remake), The Wolverine is an interesting study in present-day Hollywood economics. The setting and predominantly Asian cast acknowledges the importance of the foreign, esp. Asian market to American film production. Your movie could sink in the US, but if Asia comes to see it, you live. Jackman is the only brand name in the cast; presumably they save on star salaries, so they can employ all of New Zealand (Weta) to do the special effects.

The funniest moment arrived in the middle of the end credits. This being a Marvel movie, we knew we had to wait for the stinger. There was something on the screen and someone in the next line, but that wasn’t it. When (We Won’t Say) appeared, the fanboys in row E had a loud collective orgasm. And when (We Won’t Say, Either) turned up the fanboys impregnated their seats, creating new mutants that are part-human and part-upholstery.

The Wolverine: Highly recommended.

Saffy is Wolverina.

This is the Rolling Stone issue with the Boston Bomber on the cover. The cover has elicited much protest, and many outlets have refused to sell the issue. Rolling Stone has been accused of portraying the bomber as a rock star/celebrity. That same photo appeared in the New York Times—no one objected because the NYT is journalism while Rolling Stone is supposed to be pop culture. In fact Rolling Stone has had a long history of excellence in journalism; it’s just that we always associate it with rock stars. And the investigative report by Janet Reitman is first-rate. It drives home the point of the cover: that nice-looking, popular young men with plenty of potential can become mass murderers just like that.

In October.

The trailer promises the same take-no-prisoners approach Cuaron and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki used on Children of Men. Ooh, chills.

Another movie we’re looking forward to: Elysium, Neill Blomkamp’s follow-up to District 9. Looks like it’s a good year for science-fiction movies.

via Film School Rejects