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Our latest books, Geeks Vs. Jocks—a collection of our articles on tennis, rugby and more death-defying games such as politics, and The Stories So Far, our new short stories, will be available at the end of the year in e-book form. There’s been a delay because we’re finicky, but they are definitely coming.

The print edition appears next year. Buy the e-book and get a discount on the hardback. Yes, hardback. (Our books have never appeared in hardcover, a lingering frustration we can now address.)

In the meantime, if you’re looking for holiday presents for friends who are sympathetic to the cause of World Domination or whom you wish to convert, or if you just need to stop thinking about what to get people for Xmas, give them the gift of Twisted. We’ll even sign the books for them.

Fill out the order form below and email it to saffron.safin@gmail.com. Our elves will get back to you within the day to confirm your order.

ORDER FORM – Twisted

You can pick up and pay for your orders at Nexus Technologies, G/F Don Pablo Building, Amorsolo St (between De la Rosa and Rufino Sts), Makati City, near Makati Medical Center. Part of our sales will go to Nexus’s Yolanda Relief Fund.

This offer is good till 30 December 2013 or until our stocks last.

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Thank you for your inquiries. Each book (newsprint, brand new) is Php200. Yes, we can ship complete sets of Twisted (10 books) abroad, provided all the books are in stock. If you’re ordering Twisted from another country, you should probably buy at least 10 books or the shipping cost will exceed the cost of the books.

Inside Llewyn Davis stars a ginger tom cat named Ulysses, who is actually several cats because cats are divas and don’t like doing retakes. Cute cat, and his human co-star’s not bad, either. Ulysses has received plaudits for his performance, particularly for that scene in the subway where he watches the signs whooshing by (and he is apparently a running theme haha). We are wary of movies featuring animal performers because we were traumatized by Old Yeller, and we especially hate movies where the animal characters are killed off just so the audience will feel something. We don’t think the Coen Brothers will torment Ulysses, but they do enjoy torturing their human characters (wood chippers, bolt guns, etc) so we can’t be sure. Nothing bad better happen to that cat. (This being a Coens movie, we’re assuming Llewyn Davis doesn’t live happily ever after.)

Here are Saffy and Mat’s horror movie auditions.

Read Do Cats Control My Mind? in The Atlantic.

This site has a Facebook page maintained by our friends at Fuentes Manila.

We are antisocial.

In case there is any confusion.

We enjoy translating stories into Tagalog, and we love the BBC series Sherlock (The third series premieres in the UK on New Year’s Day), so why don’t we merge our interests and translate the Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle into Tagalog?

Can it be done? How do you say “Elementary, my dear Watson” in Tagalog?

Holmes never says “Elementary, my dear Watson”. Sometimes he says “Elementary” and sometimes, “my dear Watson”, but never in a single phrase. It’s like “He’s dead, Jim”, a line widely attributed to Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy in classic Star Trek, which Bones never utters.

So how do you say “Elementary”? Or “deduction”?

“The game is afoot?”

Uro suggests: 1. Binalasa na ang mga baraha. 2. Ikinamada na ang mga pitsa. 3. Inihagis na ang bola. 4. Umiinog na ang sinanduyong.

How about: Tara!

The Sherlock Holmes Translation Team. What do you think? Would you like to join us? The 24 short stories are here; which one do you want to work on? Would you prefer to do one of the novels? Could you finish it in a month or do you need more time? Tell us.

While leafing through The Big New Yorker Book of Cats, an anthology of stories, poems, New Yorker covers and cartoons featuring cats, we found David Schickler’s story, The Smoker. We read The Smoker in Schickler’s story collection Kissing in Manhattan and we liked that collection a lot. It reminded us of Nine Stories by a certain other writer. However, we could not recall the presence of a cat in the story.

So we read the story again. We still like it very much, and it does have a cat in it. Here’s Robert Sean Leonard reading The Smoker for NPR’s Selected Shorts.

I am Saffy and I demand that you put me in a short story. As the main protagonist.

Read the short story by David Schickler at The New Yorker.

I am Drogon! And I am burdened with glorious purpose.

You may kneel and kiss my…

Stay here with Shai Hulud, Mickey Rourke, while I secure the perimeter.

All clear. Soon these seats will be crawling with humans.

Hearken to them. Sound the alarm, we are at NERDCON 3.

Circling the book table. Photo by Juan.

We had a blast at our Meet and Greet-Book Swap-Merienda last Saturday at the 7th floor events space of the WSI Corporate Center. We were so busy yakking with our guests, caffeinating, and making sure Drogon didn’t sneak off in someone’s bag that we didn’t have time to take pictures. If you were there, please email your photos to saffron.safin@gmail.com and we will post them later.

Drogon and his human, photo by allancarreon

Thanks to WSI for our excellent venue and facilities. (They have spaces for seminars, parties, wedding receptions, family reunions, clandestine superhero conventions and so on. For rental inquiries, contact Bon Perez, (02)8585405.) Thanks to J.Co for the coffee and doughnuts, and to our readers for bringing their books to the Book Swap. Drogon would like to thank everyone who brought kibble and treats–he is now contemplating a career in cuteness-based extortion.

Get ready for a lot of photos of readers posing with Drogon.