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JessicarulestheUniverse » Auntie Janey’s Old-Fashioned Agony Column # 44: The older woman with money, younger man with none story
Dear Auntie Janey, I’m 30 and moving to UK next month for work and further studies. I’ve been single for more than 2 years. My last relationship lasted 7 years. I’ve had three boyfriends in total and they were all former classmates (so we’re in the same age group). They all came into my life [...] [Link]
JessicarulestheUniverse » A life of quality, not just quantity
Highgate Cemetery, June 2010 Years ago, Charlie, a highly respected orthopedist and a mentor of mine, found a lump in his stomach. He had a surgeon explore the area, and the diagnosis was pancreatic cancer. This surgeon was one of the best in the country. He had even invented a new procedure for this exact [...] [Link]
JessicarulestheUniverse » Sleep tips for insomniacs
The cat who lives outside Momo at Ayala Triangle Gardens. 1. Get a cat. Cats sleep two-thirds of the day. Learn from the experts. 2. Turn off your phones, tablets, computers two hours before you go to bed and resist the urge to check your messages. 3. Read a Victorian novel. Dickens, Austen, Eliot and [...] [Link]
JessicarulestheUniverse » Demonsterate
by Nawel Louerrad, translated by Canan Marasligil Read this graphic novel in Words Without Borders. [Link]
JessicarulestheUniverse » Pork Empanada
The EDSA writing assignment reminded us of Tony Perez’s Cubao stories, some of which happen right on EDSA. Our favorites books in the series are Cubao: Pagkagat Ng Dilim, Cubao Midnight Express and Eros, Thanatos, Cubao. A couple of years ago we translated one of Tony’s more recent stories into Tagalog. Pork Empanada takes place [...] [Link]
JessicarulestheUniverse » The Weekly LitWit Challenge 8.5: EDSA Stories
EDSA, 7 February 2012 The winner of the Weekly LitWit Challenge 8.4: Which is better, the book or the movie? is——Nobody. Nobody wins. Not just because all the entries gave perfunctory answers, but because they didn’t really talk about the book or the movie, they talked about themselves. So last week’s prizes will be added [...] [Link]
JessicarulestheUniverse » Happy Birthday, Charles Dickens
Still vital at 200. Listen to Hugh Laurie reading an excerpt from Great Expectations. [Link]
JessicarulestheUniverse » A Dangerous Method: The historical hysterical
Viggo Mortensen as Freud and Michael Fassbender as Jung in David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method Something Sigmund Freud says in A Dangerous Method, David Cronenberg’s stupendous film on the birth of psychoanalysis, caused us to sit up straight in the slouch chair. He tells Sabina Spielrein, the patient, then lover, then student of his estranged [...] [Link]
JessicarulestheUniverse » How to have even more fun in this archipelago
Get a copy of Linamnam by Claude Tayag and Mary Ann Quioc. Linamnam, Php395 at National Bookstores Proceed to eat your way around the Philippines. This culinary travel guide is arranged by region for easy reference: now you know exactly where to go and what to order. What! You’ve never had the Crispy Itik and [...] [Link]
JessicarulestheUniverse » Red shoes and the politics of shopping
While broiling in the heat of the Melbourne summer I realized I was wearing the wrong shoes. My thick-soled tennis shoes might have been useful for chasing a down-the-line forehand by Nadal, except that there is a zero probability of me chasing a down-the-line forehand by Nadal. They were too heavy in the heat; at [...] [Link]
JessicarulestheUniverse » Great Expectations: The Tagalog translation so far (Raw and unedited)
Chapters 3 to 5 were translated by the members of our Dickens Translation Group oberstein, chigaune, Akyat-Bahay Gangster, PinoySpag, girlfriday0104, goneflyingakite, cdlaclos, giancarlo, jaime and kotsengkuba. Let’s give our other volunteers till Thursday to submit their pages. Then we can proceed with the next chapters (The new volunteers will also get their assignments). One page [...] [Link]
JessicarulestheUniverse » Save the crocodile, not the corrupt politician
Crocodile, meet shirt. Chris Banks, Melbourne Zoo’s director for international conservation partnerships, introduces a baby crocodile to David Celdran, Philippine endorser of the Lacoste Save Your Logo project. Unless you are cut off from civilization you have probably heard about biodiversity loss and its impact on the environment. The International Union for the Conservation of [...] [Link]
JessicarulestheUniverse » Living with Pusakal
Mat adopted us. “What breed of cat do you have?” I am frequently asked. The long answer is: Cats don’t need to be purebred. Pedigree is redundant in their case because they’re already a super-species, i.e. vicious killing machine in adorable package. The short answer, delivered proudly, is pusakal or pusang kalye. They came from [...] [Link]
JessicarulestheUniverse » Damien Hirst as a bedtime story
Put Me in the Zoo is a famous children’s book by Robert Lopshire, originally released in 1960 on Dr. Seuss’s publishing imprint. It tells the story of a spotted leopard who can change his spots and their colors, and can even juggle them. He fails to convince two children that he is special enough to [...] [Link]
JessicarulestheUniverse » Dickens’s people: Pip
Douglas Booth as Pip in the 2011 BBC adaptation of Great Expectations. Sometimes the hero of a Dicken’s novel is amongst its least colourful and dynamically interesting characters but Pip is a portrait of real psychological depth and complexity. His slow journey towards self-knowledge is a masterpiece of first person narration, the sound of someone [...] [Link]
JessicarulestheUniverse » Auntie Janey’s Old-Fashioned Agony Column # 43: “Separada in heat”
Dear Aunt Janey, I have recently separated from my husband when I found out that he had an affair with a married ex-girlfriend. The affair started shortly after we got married and ended when the lecherous ex-girlfriend had a miscarriage. It is unfortunate though that I only found out about it after the fact. I [...] [Link]
JessicarulestheUniverse » They had us at the opening credits.
Fincher and Reznor (and Zeppelin)! What are the chances of Peter Jackson using Misty Mountain Hop or Battle of Evermore in The Hobbit? Our friend has a serious beef with the way Steven Zaillian’s screenplay has futzed with the source material. We’re delighted that the movie does not sound like the book. (Granted it may [...] [Link]
JessicarulestheUniverse » Happy tennis fan
My knees hurt. My legs are cramping up. It’s 11pm and I need a drink badly. The crowd is yelling in my ears. Do I have the strength left to finish this match? Could I possibly hold out for another set, then probably another one after that? And all I’m doing is sitting in the [...] [Link]
JessicarulestheUniverse » The Weekly LitWit Challenge 8.4: Which is better, the book or the movie?
You picked the winner of the Weekly LitWit Challenge 8.3: Cruel Rejections. It’s VenusdeSupsup! Congratulations, Venus—it appears you voted for yourself more than twice; fortunately other readers agreed. You may claim your Carson McCullers hardcover any day starting Thursday, 2 February 2012, at the Customer Service counter of National Bookstore at Power Plant Mall, Rockwell, [...] [Link]
JessicarulestheUniverse » Kawawa naman ang bobo
From the Coens’ Blood Simple, a smart movie about people doing stupid shit. That title goes out to our friend The Bone. What’s our one movie of the year this year? * * * * * There’s no gentle way to put it: People who give in to racism and prejudice may simply be dumb, [...] [Link]