Jessica Zafra's Blog, page 105

This week in glasses

The not-understated frames are from Moira’s trip to Bangkok last year. Prescription frames by Nella Sarabia at UP Shopping Center. The hair is uncharacteristically well-behaved because Chus just cut it.

Lydia Barry ponders the Unthinkable Mind

We know Lynda Barry as a writer and cartoonist whose illustrated memoirs of growing up with her Filipino grandmother (with manananggal drawings!) are hilarious and heartbreaking. Ms Barry is also an assistant professor of interdisciplinary creativity in Wisconsin. Syllabus is a collection of class notes, drawings and syllabi from her early years of teaching. It’s […]

Every movie we see # 7: Birdman, or Finally, someone remembered that Michael Keaton is brilliant.

Usually we find the work of Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu irritating, self-important and gimmicky. It thinks it’s really deep. We like his Oscar-nominated movie Birdman, which is a gimmick—the whole film is made to look like one long take, accompanied by a single drummer whom we occasionally glimpse in the theatre hallway—that works. It is deeper […]

Broad City: At last, a show by, about, and for girls

Millennials try to make their way in the world in Comedy Central’s brilliantly bizarre, often surreal Broad City. Creators Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson star as two college graduates in their early 20s also named Ilana and Abbi. They’re in the same demographic as the characters of Lena Dunham’s HBO series Girls, but far less […]

How to fall in love with anyone in 36 questions

Illustration by Brian Rea for the New York Times In a lab experiment, the psychologist Arthur Aron succeeded in making two strangers fall in love. Yeah there are variables that were not considered, and we don’t like to think that humans are so easy, but let’s say it worked. Basically the subjects sit face to […]

The Devil in the Philippines

Translated into English and annotated by Benedict Anderson, Carlos Sardiña Galache and Ramon Guillermo, Ang Diablo sa Filipinas (1886) unfolds as a dialogue between Isabelo and his friend Gatmaitan. They hear that a directorcillo in Bulacan, well-known for his library, has died. (The directorcillos were the secretaries of the Spanish administrators. They handled all official […]

Is that the Phantom of the Opera in the Penny Dreadful trailer?

Ooh, more Victorian monsters. Is Billie Piper’s Irish accent still alive? The Bride of Frankenstein doesn’t talk, does she?

Another year, another writing workshop at Ayala Museum on Jan 22, 29, and Feb 5

A Writing Workshop January 22, 29 and February 5, 2015 6 – 8 pm Anyone can write, but can they write well? Whether you’re working on your college entrance essay or The Great Filipino Novel, a comic book or the screenplay of a future Cannes winner, the standards of good writing apply. Before you can […]

In case of dead body, everybody make coffee.

It’s an old cop trick to mask the smell. The most insane deaths seen by an NYC medical examiner by Maureen Callahan When Judy Melinek was considering where to begin her career as a medical examiner — New York or LA? — she was given great advice. “If you really want to learn forensic pathology, […]

A straitjacket for cranky cats

We know from experience that Saffy should be treated like Hannibal Lecter: restrain or get your face bitten off. Saffy, our feline housemate who is almost 15, has a toothache. How do you know if a cat has a toothache? If they drool, their breath smells worse, they make horrible faces and noises while eating […]