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The Yucch-meter would like to make a statement.

Do not try to be cool. If you try to be cool, that is uncool. Much of what is great in the world was thought up by people who were not considered cool in their time. We are not cool. So accept your uncoolness and embrace it.

Just tell the damn story, everything follows. Thank you.

The Yucch-meter is back from a longish break, refreshed and ready to cut off some heads. What have we got?

#1 rice_cooker. Garden-variety tale of unrequited passion set in a call center. The location is wasted: there is no good reason why this story should take place in a call center. Apparently this call center has a grand total of two employees, the narrator and the object of his desires. But our main problem with this entry: Inept figures of speech. “Piano-long fingers”—They’re 2.2 meters long?? What is she, a giant squid? She has a “coke figure”—emaciated and nervous?? You mean capital C plus bottle. “Her laugh is braying like a donkey”—Do consult the spelling and grammar checker on your word processing application, it would spare you so much grief and spare us so much annoyance.

In general something happens in a story. In this one the narrator pines from beginning to end, eliciting not sympathy but the urge to put him out of his misery.

#2 Askaniclan. Shrewdly exploits consumer fury at inefficient customer service. Actually knows something about how call centers operate. Hilarious! Not a waste of Michael’s picture.

#3 angus25. This is interesting because. . .?

#5 aimubear. Cute, but this is a caption not a story.

#6 sirius black. The reason we enforce a 1,000-word limit is not only to prevent the Yucch-meter from exploding out of sheer rage but to encourage the contestants to cultivate discipline in their writing. Control is a much undervalued quality because it does not show. And yet it is most essential when going for the effect of being out of control. Otherwise words would not be employed; all would be drool spattered on a screen.

Of course we allow contraventions of the word limit if we sense something extraordinary in the piece. One never knows where genius will turn up. Next.

#7 shadowplay. See # 3. Even if you put a bunch of words together according to the rules of grammar, it does not automatically follow that you are saying something.

#8 winnerific. This entry has aspirations. There is a potentially intriguing plot lost in a welter of words. You might try rewriting this as simply and directly as possible.

Everyone, listen. Before you can experiment you have to be adept at basic storytelling. Before he could go cubist, Picasso had to learn to draw the traditional way. How can you fracture, fragment, reinvent something if you do not know what it is in the first place?

Sure, bring up Orson Welles. Really? Is that you Orson? Show us. And bear in mind what happened to Orson Welles after Citizen Kane.

#9 Cacs. A future in which spoken language is obsolete. Good idea. We are tired of saying nice things about you. Here’s an assignment for you: Write us an ad promoting reading.

#10 ouroboros. Sound the alarm, we just heard the ring of authenticity. This narrator sounds like a human being with actual life experience. Forthright style, details chosen to elicit empathy. The final paragraphs connect the story to the photo in a humorous way. Works for us.

The winners of LitWit Challenge 5.1 are ouroboros, Cacs (you can open a bookstore now), winnerific, aimubear and Askaniclan. Please post your full names in Comments (they won’t be published) and we’ll alert you when your prizes have been delivered to National Bookstore in Rockwell.

The Weekly LitWit Challenge is brought to you by our generous and very helpful friends at National Bookstore. We would like to thank the staff of National Bookstore at Power Plant Mall, Rockwell in particular for their courteous service, efficiency and their patience in addressing prize claims.

Next LitWit Challenge coming right up.

We open a new series of Weekly LitWit Challenges with the ever-popular 1,000 Words contest.

Here is the picture.

Philippine Volcanoes national rugby team captain Michael Letts visits a call center in Bonifacio Global City, February 2011. Photo by JZ. Your story need not involve rugby players, Lettsies, tall guys with freckles, call centers, or Bonifacio unless you insist.

Now write us the story this picture is telling you. 1,000 words, preferably less. Post your stories in Comments on or before midnight of Saturday, 12 March 2011.

We got a grand total of two entries in the last challenge, Books vs. Movies. Sad. So we’re declaring that contest void, and giving away those prizes in this week’s challenge. The Top 8 entries in LitWit Challenge 5.1: Brrrrrring! will receive copies of Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro plus the official movie poster of Never Let Me Go starring Knightley-Garfield-Mulligan.

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

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The Yucch-meter is back from a longish break, refreshed and ready to cut off some heads. What have we got?

#1 rice_cooker. Garden-variety tale of unrequited passion set in a call center. The location is wasted: there is no good reason why this story should take place in a call center. Apparently this call center has a grand total of two employees, the narrator and the object of his desires. But our main problem with this entry: Inept figures of speech. “Piano-long fingers”—They’re 2.2 meters long?? What is she, a giant squid? She has a “coke figure”—emaciated and nervous?? You mean capital C plus bottle. “Her laugh is braying like a donkey”—Do consult the spelling and grammar checker on your word processing application, it would spare you so much grief and spare us so much annoyance.

In general something happens in a story. In this one the narrator pines from beginning to end, eliciting not sympathy but the urge to put him out of his misery.

#2 Askaniclan. Shrewdly exploits consumer fury at inefficient customer service. Actually knows something about how call centers operate. Hilarious! Not a waste of Michael’s picture.

First let’s dispose of some long-delayed business.

The winner of LitWit Challenge 4.8: No More Food is tricycledriver. Congratulations! You can pick up your prize any day starting Friday March 4 at the Customer Service counter, National Bookstore in Power Plant Mall, Rockwell, Makati. Tel. 8974562.

Our apologies to the winners of the 127 Hours movie poster giveaway: We were supposed to mail you the posters but we don’t want to fold them. Instead of mailing you the posters we will deliver them to National Bookstore, Power Plant so you can pick them up any day starting Friday 4 March. Sorry again for the delay.

Now for the new contest.

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Jean-Luc Godard directs Brigitte Bardot and Michel Piccoli in Contempt, adapted from the Alberto Moravia novel.

Filmmakers have been adapting literary works for the screen since the invention of movies. The results vary widely. Many critics contend that the book is better than the movie, though they concede that Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather 1 and 2 are superior to the novel by Mario Puzo. Many books are deemed unfilmable, such as The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, which was adapted into a 13-hour (longer if you watch the extended versions as we do every year) trilogy by Peter Jackson. The Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling were all made into very lucrative movies, and then they realized there was only one book left so they made it into two movies. (We’re not sure the Twilight series qualify as literature or film.)

Spike Jonze took the task of adaptation to another dimension with his meta-fictional adaptation of Susan Orlean’s nonfiction book The Orchid Thief, aptly titled Adaptation. Much as we love The Great Gatsby, the only thing we remember of the film version starring Robert Redford and Mia Farrow are the outfits (and we’re kind of dreading the 3D movie by Baz Luhrman–brilliant or idiotic, it could go either way).

Recently Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro was adapted for film by Mark Romanek. (I have not read the book or seen the movie but I already know the spoiler, thanks to an idiotic literary critic who revealed it in a review. Grrrrrr.) The film opens in Metro Manila theatres tomorrow. This week eight readers will each win a copy of Never Let Me Go plus the official movie poster (below, cat not included).

Your assignment is to write an essay of 1,000 words or less comparing a work of literature with its film adaptation. As there are way too many film adaptations to choose from, we are limiting the field to 15 book-movie pairs. Pick a pair.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick vs. Blade Runner by Ridley Scott
Atonement by Ian McEwan vs. Atonement by Joe Wright
Brokeback Mountain by E. Annie Proulx vs. Brokeback Mountain by Ang Lee
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov vs. Lolita by Stanley Kubrick
The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomassi di Lampedusa vs. The Leopard (Il Gattopardo) by Luchino Visconti
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby vs. High Fidelity by Stephen Frears
Contempt by Alberto Moravia vs. Contempt (Le Mepris) by Jean-Luc Godard
The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith vs. The Talented Mr. Ripley by Anthony Minghella OR Purple Noon (Plein Soleil) by Rene Clement
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad vs. Apocalypse Now by Francis Ford Coppola

Clive Owen stars in Alfonso Cuaron’s heartbreakingly good film of Children of Men by P.D. James.

Dune by Frank Herbert vs. Dune by David Lynch
The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean vs. Adaptation by Spike Jonze
The Little Drummer Girl by John LeCarre vs. The Little Drummer Girl by John Schlesinger
The End of the Affair by Graham Greene vs. The End of the Affair by Neil Jordan
Q&A by Vikas Swarup vs. Slumdog Millionaire by Danny Boyle
Children of Men by P.D. James vs. Children of Men by Alfonso Cuaron

Post your entries in Comments. We will accept entries until noon on Sunday, 6 March 2011.

Kyle MacLachlan feels the Reverend Mother’s gom jabbar in David Lynch’s Dune, which is possibly even stranger than Frank Herbert’s Dune.

Thanks to our friends at 20th Century Fox for the official Never Let Me Go movie posters. Never Let Me Go opens March 2.

The Weekly LitWit Challenge is brought to you by our friends at National Bookstore. Click on their ad on the upper left hand corner to find out how to win one of the 50 iPads they’re giving away.

Violent protests across the global South, in response to rocketing food prices from 2006 to 2008, highlighted an intrinsic flaw in the modern system of world trade—one that poses a serious threat to regional and international stability. In The Food Wars, Walden Bello traces the evolution of this crisis, examining its eruption in Mexico, Africa, the Philippines and China. Daring in vision and impassioned in tone, The Food Wars speaks out against the obscene imbalance in the most basic commodities between northern and southern hemispheres.

Walden Bello is founding director of Focus on the Global South and a member of the House of Representatives of the Philippines. A former professor at the University of the Philippines, he has written fifteen books. – From the blurb

Your assignment this week: Write us a story set in the near-future in a megalopolis that looks a lot like Manila, in which there is very little food left for the exploded population, there are food riots, and enterprising citizens find other sources of nourishment.

1,000-word maximum.

Deadline: 11.59pm, Saturday, 19 February 2011.

The prize: The Great Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant, and The Apocalypse Reader, edited by Justin Taylor, with stories by Rick Moody, Dennis Cooper, Kelly Link, Michael Moorcock and others.

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

chosen by our guest judge, poet and teacher Danton Remoto.

In third place, a tie.

Fast and furious as the fists of Pacman, this one satirizes Mayweather the mealy-mouthed bore using his own pronouncements.

The winner of LitWit Challenge 4.6: Write us a sonnet is:

Nectars and Necklaces by balqis—two sonnets actually, the second better than the first but both good. Very poised and tightly-written‚ you’d think this manic poet was possessed by a 16th century sonneteer. Hooray!

Congratulations, balqis! You can have your prize picked up at the Customer Service counter, National Bookstore, Power Plant Mall, Rockwell, Makati any day starting Thursday, February 17. Their number is (02)8974562.

Thanks to Danton for selecting our winner this week. Mwah!

Thanks to everyone who joined this demanding LitWit Challenge; the next one is coming up.

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

No reason, we just find it hilarious.

Photo: James Franco and Aron Ralston, the guy he plays in the movie.

We have four 127 Hours posters to give away and more than four contestants, so let’s consider their offers.

# 2 wednesdayaddams Says: My husband

Hmm, we’d have to see the husband in order to make a well-informed decision. We’ll pass.

# 4 kracle Says: lunch, and we’re going to Hap Chan later to celebrate Chinese New Year.

Naah, you can go to Hap Chan any other day, where’s the sacrifice.

# 5 cough-syrup-junkie Says: i’d give up cityville. it’s already ruining my life.

Forswearing an addiction! That makes us feel useful. Okay, you can have a poster.

# 6 kurt Says: smoking..for about a week :)

What’s the point when you will resume the habit anyway?

# 8 parisjetaime Says: I’ll give up my married boyfriend who gave me a swiss knife.

On one hand he gave you a Swiss knife, on the other hand he’s married…

Insufficient data to generate conclusion.
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