JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

The slightly clueless air is charming.

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Exhale, got through the quarters. Federer defeats Soderling 6-4, 6-4, 7-5 to advance to the US Open semifinals.

This week’s prize: Open by Andre Agassi.

As long as we’re glued to the US Open tell me a story, real or fictional, that involves tennis in some way. Tennis as metaphor, tennis love stories, tennis fan fiction, fire away. Maximum 1,000 words, deadline at 11.59 pm on Saturday, 11 September 2010.

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

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Last week I caught three more movies for our Tennis At The Movies list.

22. My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend by Eric Rohmer. Blanche is befriended by Lea, who encourages her to meet guys. Knowing that Blanche has a crush on the resident hunk Alexandre, Lea gives her a ticket to the French Open at Roland Garros. Blanche finds herself sitting with Alexandre; unfortunately she freezes up in the presence of guys she likes. She can only be comfortable with guys she’s not attracted to. Like Fabien, her girlfriend’s boyfriend.

23. Full Moon in Paris by Eric Rohmer. Louise lives in the suburbs with her boyfriend Remi, who plays tennis every Saturday morning. She’s afraid to lose her independence, so she starts staying over at her apartment in Paris on Friday nights. But living in two places at once is complicated: when she’s in Remi’s house she wants to be in her flat in Paris; when she’s in Paris she wants to be at Remi’s. So she arrives at Remi’s very early Saturday morning, and he’s not playing tennis.

24. The Woman Next Door by Francois Truffaut. Madame Jouve, manager of the tennis club in Grenoble, recounts the tale of two members: Bernard, who is happily married to Arlette, and Mathilde, who moves into the house next door with her husband Philippe. Eight years earlier Bernard and Mathilde had a stormy relationship which reduced them both into nervous wrecks. Could they avoid resuming the madness? Madame Jouve herself is the victim of a mad passion: 20 years ago, upon hearing that her former lover was getting married, she hurled herself out of an 8th floor window. . .

The Weekly LitWit Challenge: Mockingjay Edition ends at 11.59 pm. What a relief: we have contestants.

LitWit Challenge 3.5 goes online tomorrow. Here’s a clue:

The Weekly LitWit Challenge is brought to you by our friends at National Bookstore. The paperback edition of Andre Agassi’s autobiography Open is now available at National Bookstore branches.

1. If this is fake, then it IS the ad.
2. Roger looks fabulous.
3. It is an hommage to the Swiss hero William Tell.
4. The Fed actually looks better in a suit than in tennis gear. For him we will suspend our demand that players wear shorter shorts; we’ll allow him to play in long pants.
5. It is an ad for hair care products.

Thanks to Jackie for the alert.

I hope you got your print edition of the Philippine Star yesterday—it was the size and heft of a phone book—because it should become a collector’s item.

On the occasion of the 24th anniversary of the paper, our Lifestyle editor Millet M. Mananquil (MMM, like James Bond’s boss times 3) asked 24 columnists to write about 24 icons in business, politics, and the arts. Ideally the subject should be someone the writer has covered extensively, or know very well. When the assignment arrived I spent half a day considering my options. There’s my Jedi master, but I had just interviewed him before the elections; also, his daughter Bianca’s prize-winning essay on his father Teodoro Locsin, Senior would appear in the same issue. I could write about Jaime Augusto Zobel again, but Igan was already writing about his father, plus I know exactly what Jaime would say. (“Is this really necessary?”, then quick change of topic to rugby or books.) There’s Ely Buendia, but I have made too much of my association with the Eraserheads considering I was around for about five minutes (See, I just dropped their names for no good reason).

Then it occurred to me that I was approaching the assignment from the wrong angle, Prudence, when I should be coming from a position of Awe. Quandary resolved. I would write about an individual I do not know personally but whose career I have followed for the last ten years, whose tribulations and triumphs I have experienced with such intensity that they might have been my own. I would write about Roger Federer.

Genius is a dangerous idea. Genius is an affront to the principle that all people are created equal. But there is no denying that there are individuals who perform feats no one else can, and pull them off as if they were the easiest, most natural things in the world.

Roger Federer is a genius.

Continue reading this article in the Philippine Star’s 24th Anniversary Issue.

Do you have a personal photo of Roger Federer that I could borrow for an essay I’m writing? It has to be a photograph you took yourself.

If you do, please post a message in Comments and we’ll contact you. Thanks.

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Thanks to Tennis Mike and Rian for lending me their Roger photos. More! More!

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Okay, we now have more photos of Roger than I can use for my essay. Thanks to everyone who emailed. May I post the photos here?