Jessica Zafra's Blog, page 290

Julian Barnes wins "posh bingo" (Booker Prize) at last

In his acceptance speech for The Sense of an Ending, Barnes said that he felt a kinship with another long-time literary loser, Jorge Luis Borges, who was overlooked for the Nobel Prize year after year. "When asked, as he constantly was, why he had never won the Nobel Prize, Borges used to reply that there [...]

Azkals of the Himalayas

Don't ask us why we always end up in the company of jocks—it's not entirely by choice (Think Fremen encountering Sardaukar) but we're not complaining. Our friend Jay Lozada was doing make-up for the Due/Collezione fashion show at the Peninsula Manila yesterday. We needed a place to sit and write a column so we invited [...]

All we really wanted was to write like Pauline Kael.

We used to scour book sale bins for back issues of the New Yorker so we could read Pauline Kael's movie reviews. She was hilarious, knowledgeable, extremely opionated, inconsistent, verbose, and her admiration for some movies bordered on the irrational. We loved her madly. We wanted to be Pauline Kael. What She Said: The doings [...]

Mat-Mat McCaw

All Blacks Captain Richie McCaw Matthias Eomer Octavian Federer McCaw

The winner of LitWit Challenge 7.2: A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…is (Updated)

bookstothesky. Read the entries here. Congratulations, bookstothesky! Please post your full name in Comments (It won't be published) and we'll alert you when you can pick up your Limited Edition Star Wars Moleskine notebook at National Bookstore in Power Plant Mall, Rockwell, Makati. The Weekly LitWit Challenge is brought to you by our friends at [...]

The winner of LitWit Challenge 7.2: A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…is

bookstothesky. Read the entries here. Congratulations, bookstothesky! Please post your full name in Comments (It won't be published) and we'll alert you when you can pick up your Limited Edition Star Wars Moleskine notebook at National Bookstore in Power Plant Mall, Rockwell, Makati. The Weekly LitWit Challenge is brought to you by our friends at [...]

Gorillas in the Mist with Vertigo: The high heels experiment

Obviously wearing heels makes you taller, but it also forces you to pay attention to your posture. If you want to be comfortable in high heels, you have to listen to your mother's (or drill sergeant's, or maybe it's just schizophrenia) voice in your head: "Stomach in, chest out, shoulders back, butt out." Ignore the [...]

Sleeping around with Jon

That's the title of Jon Morales's new column, coming soon to this site. It's about men and women. And real estate. And women. And living without furniture. And women. And apocalyptic parties. And sex before dating vs dating before sex. Have we mentioned that it's about women? If you need an easy peg, think Sex [...]

Random Awesome

The world is especially awesome because the All Blacks defeated the Wallabies 20-6 in a ferocious semifinal at the Rugby World Cup. How vicious was it? We've never seen so much blood in a match. For sheer drama you can't beat the sight of Cory Jane and company with blood streaming down their faces. It [...]

Viridiana: Still offensive after all these years

Emotional Weather Report, today in the Philippine Star. Instituto Cervantes marked the 50th anniversary of Luis Buñuel's Viridiana with a screening at Pelikula, the 10th Spanish Film Festival. We learned that Viridiana would be projected on 35mm film, making it a mandatory movie nerd event, though in truth it doesn't take much to drag us [...]