Congratulations, bookstothesky! Please post your full name in Comments (It won’t be published) and we’ll alert you when you can pick up your Limited Edition Star Wars Moleskine notebook at National Bookstore in Power Plant Mall, Rockwell, Makati.
The Weekly LitWit Challenge is brought to you by our friends at National Bookstore.
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bookstothesky, you can pick up your Moleskine notebook at the Customer Service counter of National Bookstore in Power Plant Mall, Rockwell any day starting Friday the 21st. Enjoy!
Writing with a pen or pencil on a piece of paper is becoming an infrequent activity, even for those who were once taught the rigorous rules of penmanship in grade school and hardly saw a day go by without jotting down a telephone number or a list of food items to buy at the market on the way home, and for that purpose carried with them something to write with and something to write on. In an emergency, lacking pen or notebook, they might even approach a complete stranger to ask for assistance. For instance, on a cold January morning, I once asked a fashionably dressed middle-aged woman, standing outside a building on Madison Avenue smoking a cigarette and shivering, whether she had a pen I could use. She didn’t think this was an odd request and was happy to oblige me. After she extracted a pencil not much bigger than a matchstick from her purse, I took out a little notebook I carried in my pocket, and not trusting the reliability of my memory, wrote down some lines of poetry I had been mulling over for the previous hour, roaming the streets. Today, she’d probably be staring at an iPhone or a blackberry while puffing away on her cigarette and it would not cross my mind to bother her by asking for a pencil.
The kind of notebooks I’m describing are still available in stationery stores (the ones made by an outfit called Moleskine come in a variety of sizes and colors), so someone must still be scribbling in them—unless they are bought purely out of nostalgia for another time and remain unused now that they have so much competition. No question, one can use a smart phone as an aid to memory, and I do use one myself for that purpose. But I don’t find them a congenial repository for anything more complicated than reminding myself to pick up a pair of pants from the cleaners or make an appointment with the cat doctor. If one has the urge to write down a complete thought, a handsome notebook gives it more class. Even a scrap of paper and a stub of a pencil are more preferable for philosophizing than typing the same words down, since writing a word out, letter by letter, is a more self-conscious process and one more likely to inspire further revisions and elaborations of that thought…
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Long-overdue thanks to Rio for the Moleskine folio. No we don’t think it’s bonkers at all, but our sanity standards are a bit different.
Dear Reader. Years ago Star Wars was defiled by its own creator. Now we beg you to help us in our struggle to recover what was great about Star Wars. We regret that we are unable to convey our request to you in person, but our site is having technical problems and we’re afraid our mission to bring you to Alderaan has failed because we live in the future and Darth Vader has already blown it up.
But information vital to the survival of the Rebellion is contained in the memory systems of every child who ever sat in a movie theatre and heard about The Force. That child is you, and you will know how to retrieve it. You must see Star Wars safely delivered back to the people who love it. Its creator has been amply and most generously rewarded.
This is our most desperate hour. Not really, but that’s the line. Help us, Reader. You’re our only hope.
This week’s LitWit Challenge: In 1,000 words or less, summarize Star Wars Episodes IV to VI. Yes, the first three to appear, the last three in the chronology: A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and The Return of the Jedi.
Don’t just rattle off the plot points, make us relive the moment Luke turned off his computer and fired.
Best entry wins a Limited Edition Star Wars Moleskine notebook. Post all entries in Comments by 1159pm on Friday, 14 October 2011.
The Weekly LitWit Challenge is brought to you by our friends at National Bookstore.
We’ve noticed your fixation on Disney characters, so this challenge is for you. In 1,000 words or less, write us a story about a terrible curse and how it is banished. Something along the lines of “You will prick your finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and die before the sun sets on your sixteenth birthday.”
The prize is a hardcover copy of Moondogs by Alexander Yates.
Deadline: 12 noon on Sunday, 2 October 2011.
The Weekly LitWit Challenge is brought to you by our friends at National Bookstore.
There aren’t many novels by foreign authors set in the Philippines. There’s Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson’s massive, genius novel about a crypto-hacker who plans to build a data haven in the Philippines. The description of the protagonist’s walk from the Manila Hotel to Luneta tells us that the author was in town to research his location.
The Blue Afternoon, a novel by the British author William Boyd (A Good Man In Africa), is set in Manila at the turn of the 20th century, but we’re not entirely convinced he was here. Years ago we heard that Brian De Palma wanted to do a film adaptation—Mr. De Palma, call us. The Tesseract, Alex Garland’s novel set in Manila and reportedly written in Quezon province, was adapted for film (Yay!) but relocated to Bangkok (Booo).
Now there’s Moondogs, a novel about the kidnapping of an American businessman in the Philippines that readers have described as “Tarantinoesque”. For starters the perps are a taxi driver on meth and an evil rooster, and the crack force that is out to find them is endowed with supernatural powers. That sounds Pinoy all right, but how well does the author, Alexander Yates, know the Philippines? Has he even been here?
Oh yes, Alexander Yates has been here. He lived here, went to high school at IS Manila, and worked as a contractor in the US Embassy, where his job included reading stacks of Philippine newspapers dating back to the early years of the Marcos era. We spoke to Yates at the 32nd Manila International Book Fair, where he was one of the featured authors.
ATTENTION: The winners of the Weekly LitWit Challenge 7.0: What would you say to your 10-year-old self?
kratienza, Evan, noelz, Momelia, stellalehua and jeromeshuny: You can pick up your prizes beginning Tuesday, Sept 27, 2011 at the Customer Service Counter of National Bookstore at Power Plant Mall, Rockwell, Makati. Their number is (02)8974562. We’re leaving six books, one for each of you: pick the book you like best. Obviously the last one to get their book gets the title everyone else passed on. And we’re not going to tell you what the titles are. It’s a surprise!
The Weekly LitWit Challenge (and our interview with Alexander Yates) is brought to you by our friends at National Bookstore.
Our favorite Steven Soderbergh movie is one of his earliest: King of the Hill, in which little Jesse Bradford is left to fend for himself in a fleabag hotel during the Depression. Based on the memoir of A.E. Hotchner.
We asked readers what advice they would offer if they ran into themselves at age 10. Read the entries.
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Hey Jessica. I know, I get that a lot! Other than getting a bit taller, we look the same. It sounds like doom right now, but later you’ll be grateful. Listen carefully, there are things I have to tell you about our life, vital stuff…
On second thought, you don’t have to hear it. Carry on exactly as you’re doing. There’ll be crappy parts, but when we get to my age we will look back and laugh at them. Umm, yes, but apart from Starfleet General Order #1, it’s what makes us us, you know what I’m saying? Seriously, I almost wish there were more crappy parts so we’d have more material. Well, they don’t get us now, and they still won’t get us in the future, but some people will. I’d say don’t worry so much, but see, our neurosis kind of…becomes a career. So don’t get too sane, kid.
Oh yeah, he’s going to make some excellent movies after Take the Money and Run. The Lord of the Rings will be filmed, and it will be wonderful. Dune, not so much, but still very interesting. Do me a favor and buy every Laurie Colwin book you see, because later it’ll be harder to find copies. Read everything by James Salter and tell everyone to read him. Don’t worry, nobody understands Finnegan’s Wake.
When you start working, save money and buy stock in a company in Cupertino called Apple. Hang on to your stock even when it seems to fall apart and the guy gets eased out. He’ll be back.
Wait, here’s something. When she graduates from college, start hounding our best friend to get medical exams every year, okay? Her lungs in particular. Write that down.
When you discover Rickie Lee Jones, look up one of her associates, Tom Waits, so we can get started sooner. Don’t lose faith in Goran Ivanisevic, your belief will be redeemed. And on the year it is redeemed, you will spot a player who causes you to leap out of your seat and call your friends yelling, “Did you see that?” Bet on him. His record the following year will suck, but you will have an excellent five-year run after that.
When you book hotels on the Internet—yes, you’re going to travel a lot—never believe the words “centrally located”. If you still decide to go to Duino, get off the train at Monfalcone, not Trieste central station. Yup, we’ve been to Venice five times. Try to pay in cash, plastic will cost you.
You’ll be fine. Always trust your first impression of people. You’ll do stupid things but you’ll live, and anyhow embarrassment is better than regret. Yes we’re actually happy, and complaining is our way of saying it without being annoying. And cats are brilliant.
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The winners of the Weekly LitWit Challenge 7.0 are: noelz, jeromeshuny, evan, greeneggsnham, kratienza, stellalehua and Momelia.
But we only have one prize, so we go into Sudden Death! One winner gets the book, the runners-up get consolation prizes, and if for some reason the winner cannot fulfill his/her obligations etc etc.
Answer the same question in ONE SENTENCE. You have 24 hours. Go!
The Weekly LitWit Challenge is brought to you by our friends at National Bookstore.
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We just saw Zombadings for the fourth time and we’re in a good mood so we’re not even going to try to name one winner. The winner iiissss. . .Everyone who joined the Sudden Death competition: noelz, jeromeshuny, evan, kratienza, stellalehua and Momelia. Please post your full names in Comments (They won’t be published) and we’ll alert you when your prizes are ready (and tell you what they are!).
The Weekly LitWit Challenge is brought to you by our friends at National Bookstore.
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