Jessica Zafra's Blog, page 8

Journal of a Lockdown, 10 May 2020

Slept through an earthquake. The mosquito zapper was delivered yesterday. Whenever a mosquito commits suicide by dive-bombing the blue light, I rejoice. Today’s book: The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott, a fictionalized account of the hell that Boris Pasternak and his partner Olga Ivinskaya went through during the writing and publication of Dr. Zhivago, […]

Journal of a Lockdown, 9 May 2020

If you love books, then on at least ten occasions you have said: “I wish I had time to just lie in bed for a week, reading books.” I love books, I have lots of books to read, and I have time. Today I picked up Topics of Conversation by Miranda Popkey. It’s a good-looking […]

Journal of a Lockdown, 8 May 2020

Even in a dark, airconditioned room you can feel the heat outside sucking out your energy so all you want to do is shut down and sleep. I’d been noshing on books, reading several halfway then beginning new ones—what’s the rush, I have time—but since staying vertical is a challenge when you’re being parboiled, I […]

Peque Gallaga, 1943-2020

Maurice Ruiz de Luzuriaga Gallaga. Photo from wikipedia. Peque Gallaga died in Bacolod this morning. He had been in poor health for some time. I had not seen him in many years, so for now I can deny that he no longer exists. How can he be dead when Oro, Plata, Mata, Virgin Forest, Scorpio […]

Journal of a Lockdown, 5 May 2020

A procession of publicans and a beggar following the coffin of Madam Geneva; attacking the Act preventing distillers from retailing or selling gin to unlicensed premises. Engraving, 1751 from the Wellcome Collection. The temperature in the early afternoon was 36 degrees Celsius; the heat index was 45 degrees. As Ige would say, if the weather […]

Journal of a Lockdown, 4 May 2020

I don’t like phone calls because I prefer to talk face to face, in the same way I refuse to use “friend” as a verb online because before we get to the noun we have to have a shared history. I like video calls even less because they feel like an invasion. But the age […]

Journal of a Lockdown, 3 May 2020

If I lived at the Metropolitan Museum in NY, my cats would have their birthday parties in the Temple of Dendur. I’ve kept it together for 6 weeks by following a schedule. I’ve never been so disciplined in my life. If I’d been like this in high school and college, who knows what I might […]

Journal of a Lockdown, 2 May 2020

Photo from amazon.com. Yesterday the airconditioner in the living room was whirring and blowing air, but not getting cold. The average temperature round noon is 36 degrees, but feels like 42. May has just begun, and meteorologists expect this to be the hottest year in history. Where would I find an aircon repairman in lockdown? […]

Journal of a Lockdown, 1 May 2020

Photos by Ricky Villabona Ricky who lives in a high-rise has been taking photos of the city in lockdown: eerily beautiful shots of cityscapes without people, skies so clear you can see the fires of Mordor, or alien spaceships hovering. They look like science-fiction stories waiting to be told. Where did everyone go? Why did […]

Journal of a Lockdown, 30 April 2020

You can watch the recorded reading and talk at Mt Cloud’s Facebook page. Every year Gabe Mercado and Lissa Romero-de Guia do a dramatic reading of Nick Joaquin’s story May Day Eve on May Day Eve (April 30) at Mt Cloud Bookshop in Baguio. As we are all indoors this year, they will do the […]