Mah-jongg's New Generation of Tile-Philes

· Queen Latifah, right, plays mah-jongg on her iPod Touch, though she calls it "the muh-JONG game," according to a recent article in the New York Times. When she found out about the original game, she said, "They got real tiles? I got to get that."

· There's an indie dance-music band called Mahjongg, based in Chicago. Founding members Jeff Carrillo and Hunter Husar picked the name in part because of the Jewish and Chinese "cross-cultural referencing" (the band incorporates sounds of African, Native American and funk music, among other genres), Carrillo says in an e-mail. However, the quintet doesn't play the game: "We're all more chess people."

· Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys plays mah-jongg and is known for being a stickler about the rules.

· Ang Lee's 2007 film "Lust, Caution" and Amy Tan's 1989 novel "The Joy Luck Club" (and resulting movie) include scenes set around the mah-jongg table.

· And, finally, this classic reference from Woody Allen's 1977 film "Annie Hall": "You know, I went to New York University, and I was thrown out of NYU my freshman year for cheating on my metaphysics final. You know, I looked within the soul of the boy sitt ing next to me. And when I was thrown out, my mother -- who's an emotionally high-strung woman -- locked herself in the bathroom and took an overdose of mah-jongg tiles."

-- R.B.