Jessica Zafra's Blog, page 48

Flea markets: Easy time travel to your childhood

Brooklyn Flea and Smorgasburg is on weekends at the old Williamsburg Savings Bank Clocktower in Fort Greene. I want to live there. It’s like entering a bank vault and emerging in your childhood. It was perfect flea market weather: one degree Celsius, and the wind could take your face off. I resisted the mind-boggling array […]

We live in science-fiction times. You have to read Ted Chiang’s The Story of Your Life (filmed as Arrival).

Movies showing in New York: Moonlight (which I have to see with my friends), Nocturnal Animals (Tom Ford’s latest, winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Venice where Lav Diaz won the Golden Lion), and Manchester by the Sea, the new film by Kenneth Lonergan starring Casey Affleck. Cost of a movie ticket: $16. I […]

In praise of the three-martini lunch

Photos of the library, building and cafe from themorgan.org. Carmen invited me to a three-martini lunch at the Morgan Library. A year like this calls for regular doses of alcohol as a survival mechanism, so I said yes. The Morgan Library houses the impressive collection of Pierpont Morgan. Listen, if you’re going to be a […]

The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls

A New Yorker who stood up against bullies. The people of New York standing up against bullies. The Post-It Project. Overheard in the 14th St station: “You wanna stop and write your feelings? Hey !@#$%^ tell the world how you feel!” On the platform a woman was singing “Hallelujah” in a way that honored Leonard […]

Sneaky Burials and other atrocities in the “post-truth” world

Bird’s Hell from ‘Max Beckmann in New York’, Metropolitan Museum We knew it was going to happen so we prepared ourselves for the outrage, but the temerity of the deed, the sheer contempt for justice and human decency challenges even the power of language. This is an abomination. They will not get away with this.

Greenpoint, Brooklyn, Lunch.

We were too early for lunch so we had a coffee at Peter Pan Donuts first. Naturally I had a doughnut appetizer. Peter Pan is a Brooklyn institution. Tina Fey has declared that so great is her passion for Peter Pan doughnuts, if she had a penis she would violate them. Greenpoint Fish and Lobster […]

Chelsea, Manhattan, Lunch.

The Chelsea Hotel is still under renovation. When David Byrne wrote Here Lies Love, the disco musical about Imelda Marcos, the strongman’s widow was a figure of the recent past haunting the present. And now they’re baaaaack and may very well be the future. New songs will be written, but what can be done about […]

Central Park, Manhattan, Fall.

Every time I visit I have to go to the duck pond at Central Park, to acknowledge a debt to this book. “Okay,” I said. Then I thought of something, all of a sudden. “Hey, listen,” I said. “You know those ducks in that lagoon right near Central Park South? That little lake? By any […]

2016 isn’t even over, but it is already the absolute pits.

Prospect Park, Brooklyn, Fall.

Matches the current mood: somber, melancholy, the heightened sense that all this beauty will pass. On the way to the park. This is what is meant by fall colors. We need more open green spaces at home. For every concrete monstrosity, make the mall developers build parks. But who will alienate the money? Parks are […]