Jessica Zafra's Blog, page 87

The Moss Library Sale: Hard-to-find books at 20 pesos each

Our friends the Mosses are having a big library sale at their house in Quezon City. On sale are over a thousand books, hardcover and paperback, at 20 pesos each. Most of the books are now hard to find, and there are lots and lots of collectible Penguin Classics. We went there this afternoon chanting, […]

Is Paul Rudd too adorable to be a superhero? Plus: Some of you will not like Magic Mike XXL

Of course we like Ant-Man, like it enough to worry about whether audiences will accept Paul Rudd as a superhero. He’s adorable, but there are disadvantages to being adorable—superheroes are by definition tough. It’s not that Paul Rudd isn’t aging, but he’s aging backwards so now he looks like a younger brother of Chris Pratt. […]

Welsh government responds to UFO reports in Klingon

Klingon was the chosen language for the Welsh government in its response to queries about UFO sightings at Cardiff Airport. While English and Welsh are the usual forms of communications in the Senedd, it opted for the native tongue of the enemies of Star Trek’s Captain Kirk. Shadow Health Minister Darren Millar had asked for […]

Ex Machina is the other side of Her, and fiction is the weapon of Homo sapiens

The danger of Science-Fiction Week is that you may feel like abandoning other genres altogether, they seem so staid and predictable in comparison. We saw Alex Garland’s excellent Ex Machina, starring Alicia Vikander as Ava the artificial intelligence, Oscar Isaac as her creator, and Domhnall Gleeson as the programmer chosen to administer the Turing test. […]

Forever: The pains of being immortal

Immortality is not what it used to be. Once a quality desired by humankind, it is now regarded by popular culture as problematic. Vampires are depressed because they live forever and never age, while their mortal sweethearts are subject to the depredations of time. The deathless warriors in Highlander went to great trouble beheading each […]

Frank Herbert’s Dune is 50 years old.

Study for Baron Harkonnen from the great science-fiction epic never made, Jodorowsky’s Dune Dune is set in a far future, where warring noble houses are kept in line by a ruthless galactic emperor. As part of a Byzantine political intrigue, the noble duke Leto, head of the Homerically named House Atreides, is forced to move […]

Seveneves is so good, we put off watching Magic Mike XXL to finish it.

Because two straight nights of reading until 4am were not enough for this long, dense, thrilling book. It’s so good, the choice was down to wants vs needs: Hot guys dancing in state of near-undress Vs the survival of the human race. To be exact, how the survival of the human race depends on Nerds. […]

The start of our Personal Essay Workshop has been postponed to 16 July.

Due to inclement weather. On the other hand, you have another week to enroll in the workshop. New workshop schedule: July 16, 23 and last day (TO BE ANNOUNCED) 6:30pm to 8:30pm, Ayala Museum For inquiries, email Marj at villaflores.md@ayalafoundation.org.

This week we’re reading and watching science-fiction

We just finished The Wachowskis’ Sense 8. Think of it as Cloud Atlas with fairly graphic sex. You have to hand it to the Wachowskis: they will do what they want to do. Even their “failures” are more interesting than other people’s blockbusters. Up next: The Man in the High Castle is based on Philip […]

The World Domination Theory applied to Philippine-Chinese relations

At Tina’s birthday brunch someone mentioned that due to the One Child policy in China and the common preference for male children, there will be, if there isn’t already, an imbalance in the male to female ratio in their population. Apparently if ultrasound tests showed that the fetus was female, many couples chose to terminate […]