It's going to be a merry christmas and a happy new year

The next Hannibal Lecter book, which chronicles the life of Lecter as a young man, should be out by Christmas, the NYT said. Yay to Thomas Harris! But the most exciting piece of news is the fact that Gaspard Ulliel, aka the Guy-Opposite-Audrey-Tautou-in-A-Very-Long-Engagement, will be playing the young Hannibal. I just hope that the movie won't suck, as it is produced by blockbuster maker Dino De Laurentis. The last Hannibal movie was botched, I think. David Mamet was writing the screenplay, then pulled out, so that was a loss. I am always ready to give David Mamet my affections.

see it here: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/19/books/19harr.html

Speaking of books, I have joined the merry band of Iain banks fans. TMH (the man himself, as Mr. Banks is called in the forum at www.iainbanks.net) will have a book out early next year. Another yay!

My Kind of Party

September only means one thing: the Manila International Book Fair. Two weeks ago, I made my pointless pilgrimage. Pointless, because I always don’t have enough money to buy what I need and what I want. Every year is an exercise is masochism and I never learn. The guy who manned the Emerald, the magazine retailer, was amiable. I pointed to the Foreign Affairs journal. It’s P865, the big guy said. But we can give you a 20% discount. No, I said. I need back issues. (They’re usually cheaper. I have two Foreign Affairs journal that cost me P100 each, yay!) Big Guy shook his head, they don’t have back issues. Turns out, they are prohibited to sell the back issues of Foreign Affairs. So I had to ask: what do you do with the unsold magazines? We rip the pages out and sell them to junk shops, Big Guy replied sheepishly. If he wasn’t so apologetic, I would have slapped him. Until now, that conversation depresses me. Those poor magazines, with no one to love them.

The best acquisition of the day? The long-sought, much-needed Economics for Dummies. Now I know what the GDP means.