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Due to time constraints and travel arrangements the Yucch-meter was unable to critique each submission. Massive apologies. Barring sudden trips the Yucch-meter will be on board for the next challenge.

The Boysen KNOxOUT Project EDSA artwork by filmmaker-architect Tapio Snellman on the walls of the Cubao underpass.

The finalists for this LitWit Challenge are (titles ours)

dindin for The Despair of the Driver of a Piece of Crap on Edsa
spooky for the billboard version of Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo
sirius black for the intestinal Definition of True Love
stellalehua for Birthday Present from the Creepy Driver

The winner is stellalehua for a deceptively casual account of many parents’ nightmare as told by the perp. Congratulations, stellalehua, you get the KNOxOUT Project EDSA artwork tote bag, the official poster of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, The Boy in the Suitcase, Matterhorn and Kafka On The Shore.

dindin, spooky and sirius black, you each get the Project EDSA tote bag and the Dragon Tattoo poster.

Thank you for sending in your full names. You can claim your prizes at the Customer Service counter of National Bookstore in Power Plant Mall, Rockwell, Makati, any day starting 23 February 2012. Please claim the items within 6 months.

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

Put Me in the Zoo is a famous children’s book by Robert Lopshire, originally released in 1960 on Dr. Seuss’s publishing imprint. It tells the story of a spotted leopard who can change his spots and their colors, and can even juggle them. He fails to convince two children that he is special enough to be in the zoo, and in the end they tell him where he belongs, and the story ends happily.

Little could Mr. Lopshire have known that his story would one day explain Damien Hirst’s spot paintings to a tee. In fact it could be surmised that Mr. Hirst, below referred to as $pot, was directly inspired by this story.

Put Me In The Zoo: Thinking about Damien Hirst, as a bedtime story. Thanks to BenCab for the alert.

Resolution for 2012: Visit museums regularly. Drag your friends. Get away from the crowds at the shopping malls. Give your brains something to process besides clothes and price tags. The malls aren’t going anywhere, more are being built every day, but the museums are struggling and they won’t survive your indifference. (Doesn’t that make you feel important, the thought that something will die without you?)

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Our first museum for the year: the Metropolitan Museum of Manila at the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas complex on Roxas Boulevard.

What to see at the Met:

1. The Suite Vollard by Pablo Picasso.

Pablo Picasso. Rembrandt and Woman with a Veil. Fundacion MAPRE’s Collections. Copyright Sucesion Pablo Picasso. VEGAP. Madrid, 2011.

100 etchings produced by the artist between 1930 and 1937, commissioned by the art dealer Ambroise Vollard. The Suite Vollard from the Fundacion MAPFRE Collection is one of the few complete sets in existence. Minotaurs, models, circus performers, lovers, order and chaos within the same frame. Essential for anyone with the slightest interest in modern art.

A reminder that before you can experiment, you have to have the skills; before you can be a revolutionary, you have to understand what you’re taking apart. Don’t give us that “I don’t care about tradition” crap, it’s just another way of saying “I can’t draw my way out of a paper bag.”

The exhibition is made possible by Fundacion MAPFRE and Fundacion Santiago. It closes on Saturday, 7 January 2012, so you have 3 days to see it. The Met is open from 9am to 6pm.

The British Museum recently acquired a complete set of the Suite Vollard; it will go on display in May 2012. So you can see the etchings before your friends in England do.

2. Foto a foto. A Portrait of Spain.

Photograph by Ramon Masats, Madrid, 1960. What a shot. What a shot.

Fifteen Spanish photographers depict the evolution of Spanish cities from the 1950s to the present. Presented by Accion Cultural Espanola and the Spanish Embassy on the occasion of the 150th birth anniversary of Jose Rizal.

Photograph by Francesc Catala-Roca.

3. Conscripcion, documents and maps from the National Archives showing how the colonial world produces documents, and documents produce the colonial world.

The exhibit features the Basi Revolt paintings by the 19th century artist Esteban Villanueva. The Basi Revolt broke out in Piddig, Ilocos Norte in 1807 when the Spanish authorities banned the private manufacture of basi, an alcoholic beverage made of fermented sugarcane. You do not come between the citizens and their drinks.

4. Hidalgo: The Colonial Subject as Master

Charon’s Boat.

The Christian Virgins Being Exposed to the Populace.

The major paintings of Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo.

5. The permanent exhibition of Pre-Colonial Gold and Pottery in the basement.

We hadn’t been in the basement since our grade school field trips. The Met was always on the itinerary, along with the Manila Aquarium, a doll museum that no longer exists, the Magnolia ice cream plant, and the Manila Zoo, where there was the thrilling possibility that the gorilla would throw a banana peel at someone.

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How to get to the Met: Go straight down Edsa and turn right on Roxas Boulevard. Or take the LRT to Vito Cruz and walk the rest of the way, or hop on the orange shuttle to the CCP Complex.

Price of admission: P100, less than the price of the fast food burgers we have decided to shun this year. (No fast food in 2012. We don’t love them, why should we consume them?)

Thanks to Metropolitan Museum of Manila director Gerry Torres for the tour and to his staff for the photos. Photography is not allowed at the museum. The preservation of the artifacts is somewhat more important than your need to post pictures of yourself online.

It’s a replica of an 18th century bust with its face sawn off and replaced with bathroom tiles for that pixellated effect.

Banksy wades into Catholic church sex abuse scandal with new sculpture

Apart from the obvious lack of academic qualifications there are good reasons why we should be barred from reviewing art. One, art shows elicit only two types of reactions from us: violence and indifference. Of the first type there is violent admiration—in which we become a total fan and, having no outlet for our enthusiasm, take to stalking the artist or waging war upon the artist’s detractors. On the other end there is violent revulsion—in which we must combat the urge to rip the painting from the wall and smash it upon its perpetrator’s head, although sometimes this expresses itself in fits of hysterical laughter.

But the most painful reaction is indifference. We don’t like it, we don’t dislike it, its existence is an unnecessary expense of energy and likely, so is its creator’s.

The other, more obvious reason is that we make the discussion about ourself. Lacking academic qualifications, left to my own devices, what else are supposed to talk about?

Zobel, D’Bayan and the Shock of the New in Emotional Weather Report in the Philippine Star. Whenever it comes out.

The year-long 25th anniversary celebration of the Philippine Star continues with a joint exhibition by Jaime Zobel and Igan D’Bayan at the Ayala Museum. D’Bayan thrives on shock value: exploding heads, deliquescing corpses, things seen on the covers of death metal LPs. Hmmm. But the real shock is what happens when Zobel applies his austere, formal approach to street art.

Zobel-D’Bayan is open to the public till Sunday November the 13th on the ground floor of the Ayala Museum.