Jessica Zafra's Blog, page 34

Public art as a poke in the eye

Our guide the hairless Serb suggested we go to the Zizkov TV tower because “they were taking down the babies”. I had no idea what he was talking about, but this is how he always spoke (Let’s just say he’s seen things you people wouldn’t believe). The babies turned out to be David Cerny sculptures […]

Blade Runner 2049 is a religious experience.

I crawled out of bed and got a coffee IV drip to watch Blade Runner 2049 at the cinema. Now children below 18, go away and play with your toys. Are they gone? Holy fuck Blade Runner 2049 is beautiful. I don’t mean pretty visuals beautiful, I mean sublime. I mean tears and snot in […]

If I lived in Prague, this would be my address.

The Imperial Hotel is in a gorgeous Art Deco/Czech Cubist building in Praha 1. It was built on the site of a pub dating back to the 1700s. The hotel opened in 1914, and in recent years it was completely renovated according to its original plans. This is an elevator. Going home would be the […]

Where am I? (Answered)

That is the question I asked myself when my eyes flew open at 6am after a very sound sleep brought on by jet lag and a lot of plum liquor. That plum liquor is brilliant stuff—not only did it wipe out the stiffness caused by walking ten kilometers, usually uphill, but there’s no hangover. Where […]

Pelicula, the Spanish film festival, is on from October 5-15

Salvador Calvo will open the Festival with his movie 1898, Los últimos de Filipinas. The film tells the story of the Baler siege of 1898, when a group of Spanish soldiers resisted for 337 days without knowing that the Philippine Revolution against Spain was over. Calvo will have a Q&A with the audience on October […]

Calling Filipino expats, OFWs, immigrants. It’s time to enlist in the World Domination Project.

I will be traveling often in the next five months to talk to you wherever you happen to be right now. Join the World Domination Project Facebook page (run by Bubbles) to get updates and set our meetings. You can also email me at koosama@gmail.com.

Finished or not finished, pass your papers

First submission: Iris Clamor. Good work!

Tokyo is exquisite and intense.

I’ve been in Japan for eight days to attend meetings and do research for the World Domination Project. Having kicked it over in my head for many years and published a magazine about it, the time has come to announce it to the rest of the world. It is certainly much, much saner than anything […]

And so, like many, many, many others before me, I fall in love with Japanese fashion.

I know, it’s so cliche. The store is called Kapital. The class struggle between labour and capital is the clash between my desire and my wallet. Then I find that David Sedaris has already come up with an accurate description of their clothes. The neighborhood it was in—Ebisu—is home to one of our favorite shops, […]

Let’s talk about socks

My favorite shoes with my favorite socks I’m going on several trips in the next month and doing a lot of walking, so before I left Manila I went to Marks and Spencer and bought a pack of socks. You’d think socks would be easier to find than shoes. Nope. In the last three years […]