When this pandemic is over and we have settled into our new and hopefully improved (kinder, more equal or at least less ridiculously unequal, and less destructive to the planet) world, will I miss this strange, quiet period? Will this confinement seem like an idyll?
Working from home, away from the glamor and the perks of the job, unable to spend the salaries you have traded your freedom for on designer fashions and tchotchkes, breeds disillusionment. You see your job for what it is, and contemplate leaving it for something more…creative. Speaking from the other side of the divide, where you can do whatever you want as long as you don’t expect any sort of financial security, I have to say: Don’t quit your job. In more visceral terms, of course, but these times call for kindness. Let me talk you down from that economic ledge. Read the rest of this entry →
“____ was Here” was translated into Italian for Balikbayan: Racconti filippini contemporanei, edited by Ubaldo Stecconi (Ossigeno, 1999)
Signed copies of The Collected Stories of Jessica Zafra, published by Ateneo University Press, are available here, P350 each. Email your order, full name, delivery address, and mobile number to saffron.safin@gmail.com.
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, and the stories of the women of the CIA who worked to smuggle the banned novel into the Soviet Union. It’s a Cold War thriller about the power of secrets, as told by multiple narrators in different locations and time periods. It is a riveting read, and I would be surprised if it’s not adapted into a TV series. Read the rest of this entry →
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 volume that fits perfectly in your hand, same size as Weather by Jenny Offill. There’s even a blurb by Jenny Offill. The difference is that the dust jacket of Topics is smooth and slippery, while Weather’s has a pleasantly rough texture that is easier to hang on to. Which is also how I found their contents. Read the rest of this entry →
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 decided to attack my tsundoku and read faster. Read the rest of this entry →
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 Nights, Manananggal, Tiyanak, Sonata, so many wonderful—and don’t forget: weird—movies are still with us? So they were flawed, big deal, even his flaws were interesting. Peque was an authority on Tolkien, so I will think of him as Gandalf the Grey: fallen in battle with the Balrog, to return at the turning of the tide. Read the rest of this entry →
Eyeglasses by Maria Nella Sarabia, O.D.
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