(in)Famous at Last!

Well,

Sort of. Korea.net ("The Official Website of the Republic of Korea") is featuring my blog on their front page. As that will be transient, I've taken a screen shot..

All Over but the Crying..

There they are... symbols of slavery....

Mine is on the right and that horrible imperfection on it? Yvonne's looming head behind the camera..

Waaaaaaaaaah!

The family left today and the house seems big and empty... :-(

Oh well, I'll see them all in February and have plenty of work to do...

We made it down to Gyeongju, which was grand, and scooted all over Korea in the cold (but not too cold).

A grand time was had by all and Jen made sure that the house is completely ready for the next overseas visitor .... ya'll come by now, ya hear?

SONGS OF MY DAYS: BAND ON THE RUN

LOL.. sitting here in Seoul the iPod served “Band on the Run” up and for some weird reason I rewound it 5 times and listened fully through it. Wasn’t til the 5th time I realized why the song poked at me.

Of course it was from the wayback machine…

I was somewhere outside of Palm Springs when reality hit. On a hot day in the desert, no drugs and no bats, I realized that my sister was human.

This was a realization that contradicted over 10 years of observed history.

I can’t remember what year it was, so it could have contradicted nearly 20 years of observed history.

It revolved around “Band on the Run” by the once semi-great and now treacly Sir McCartney. I had developed an immoderate love for the tune, particularly the long version. Back in the day, when dinosaurs ruled the earth), radio tended to cut singles down to snappy 2:29 ditties.

A few songs had come along and busted this up a little – “Stairway to Heaven” had been pretty impossible to:

a) deny, and
b) chop up

since it built and didn’t strictly adhere to the verse/chorus/verse model. Unfortunately, McCartney, even when brilliant, wrote in clichés, and “Band on the Run” was editable due to its formulaic structure.

So it often was edited, and I loved to hear the long version…

During summer, as usual, my parents had abandoned my sister and me to the clutches of one of the sets of our grandparents. This time, fortunately for me, it was our grandfather and his second wife. They had a closet filled with the boozes of the world and, as bored with us as we were with them, allowed me full access. I have no idea how my sister dealt with the boredom, although I did notice a lot of dead birds around the birdbath (NOTE TO SELF: Contact Hollywood Re: “Bloodbath at the Birdbath”).

The Grandparents had something on the lines of a Victrola, and my only contact with the outside world was through a portable radio the sister had smuggled down to Palm Springs.

So, in the midst of some kind of spat with sister, THE SONG came on the radio and I started grooving.
My sister was apparently adopted from as clever a family as I had been adopted from, and immediately noting that I liked the song, changed the channel.

I was, as is my habit, angry.

We got into a verbal brawl (I felt I had a minute or two for this, since the song was so long) but sister would not turn the channel back. So I grabbed the radio, or attempted to, and in the tussle I broke the antenna.

Radio reception went to black. To my utter surprise, my sister began to cry (dispelling the idea I had in my head that she was a reptile…. But.. hang on.. “crocodile tears?” it still could be true).

Sitting there, with a bent arial (better than an italic dingbats) in my hand, I felt ridiculously rotten.

In that moment I learned an important lesson –

I needed to buy my own technology, cause you can’t trust a skirt!

In the past four days I have had a couple of experiences that reminded me why I am so fond of Korea, and one of the things that moving to Korea has meant to me personally.

Last weekend, as my fiancee and I sat in Yongsan Family Park (By the Korean National Museum, Ichon Station, lines 1 and 4) I was amused to watch a young Korean girl in the middle of the playground. She ignored her surroundings and concentrated on waggling her left arm in the air. She found this intensely interesting, and so did I although I don’t think I would have been interested in doing it myself! In fact, as I watched her work her way around the playground, I noted that she found everything extremely interesting.

This started me watching all the kids in the park, and I noticed they all had remarkable ability to find things new and interesting. The boy who watched a bug intently for 10 minutes, then sprang up to chase a dog, could go back to the very same bug with the very same intensity as he had the first time he observed it (ok, the first time he poked it with a stick, he was a young boy after all).

I forgot about this until yesterday, when two things happened. First, as I was running through my daily blog list, I came across a blog that quoted the movie, Knocked Up (which I have never seen) in which two characters watch children playing in a park.

PETE
What's so great about bubbles?
BEN
They float. You can pop them. I mean, I get it. I get it.
PETE
I wish I liked anything as much as my kids like bubbles.
BEN
That's sad.
PETE
It's totally sad. Their smiling faces just point out your inability to enjoy anything.

Second, as I walked home and enjoyed the coolish autumn air and the spectacular foliage in and around Namsan Park, I settled in behind an older man, probably in his 60s. He walked along, but it was clear he wasn’t going anywhere, at least not in a hurry. He kicked at pebbles, he “high-fived” low hanging leaves, every once in a while he stopped to examine some small thing on the ground. When the sidewalk leveled off, before ascending to the Hyatt Hotel, he pulled a very thin, dead branch out of the bushes, yanked off the smaller end so that the switch was approximately cane-lengthened, and then swept up the hill like D’artagnan, poking and prodding at things in the bushes, waving the switch in front of himself, and pushing things (very small things) around on the sidewalk. I thought to myself, “what a great day, and what a great model for enjoying it.”

These three happenings, and the excellent mood I was in, crystallized something I like about children, about Korean society, and about what moving to Korea has done for me. Almost all children and much of Korea, is able to find pleasure in the smallest things, and they are able to find that pleasure again and again. I’m not sure I’ve met a jaded Korean.

Coming to Korea has restored this semi-childlike wonder in me. I had spent the last few years in the US weaving together banded bits of thread into something that throttled my ability to have spontaneous fun; there was always some important thing to do, or some way I had to act, and, at least where I was, there was no culture of spontaneous fun. In Korea, I was able to turn much of this around.

Part of it, of course, is that all of Korea was new to me when I arrived. So it was easy to be enthralled by the differences. This is one reason that people travel, you are a passport and a ticket away from a quick and easy return to a state of wonder. But another part of it is the spontaneous (a word expats often don’t associate with Korea) public culture that breeds the opportunities to have fun and new experiences. I think back to my hike up Bukhansan and the family that shared food with us (and others) and the climber who insisted I toast my summitting with Makkeoli. This kind of experience may happen disproportionately to foreigners, because we are so obvious, but I see it everywhere I go. Finally, there is also what I interpret to be (although it might be something else entirely) the Korea solipsism (I mean that in the good sense of the word) that allows Koreans in public, to ignore others and do their own things.

All of this has combined, for me, into an opportunity to reconnect with the little kid inside of me. Who knew he had emigrated to Korea?

The Grind Down to the Grind (and some good news)

Been a long time since I posted here as I have been working on projects, small and large.

I've been editing like a madman on various pieces that just keep flying in on the mojo-wire.

Still getting my classes for Fall together. I refuse to go through the kind of chaos that last semester was. While my evaluations rose steadily, I'm still an egotistic little shit who wants to be at the top of the list, and I wasn't. It hurt my little ego.

Finally I've been working on the whole lit-deal, such as it is, over at Morningcalm.

The good news being that a semi-big article I wrote about translated Korean lit is just now published on the Sat-Sun Korea Herald (you can see it here - I am also the skilled photographer who didn't notice his own fat shadow on the pavement!).

I saw an article on Korean Lit in the Herald last Sunday and was kind of surprised, since the Herald is an English newspaper, that it only talked about works in Korean. On reflection this was not too surprising, since I bet many English-savvy Koreans pick up the English-newspapers to keep in practice. Still, on Monday I sat me down and slapped out about 1K words on good Korean Lit in translation. Gave it a once-over on Tuesday morning and it went skidding back out over the mojo-wire.

Wednesday I got a response that they wanted to publish on Saturday, but needed something graphic. The scan I sent of some of my body-parts was deemed too graphic in one sense, and not impressive enough in another. So I grabbed all the books and scanned the covers (which is what had been the graphic interest in the piece I first saw to start all this). But in the text of the article I named a couple of bookstores and in my email I said pictures were available.

Which is how I ended up out in the rain on Thursday afternoon, taking pictures and eventually meeting a lovely Canadian couple who I went out with for beers..

LOL.. all good... I got another publication for not much work and it's on the lit-tip...

And today was drop-dead gorgeous in Seoul - not so humid, a bit windy, even a hint of cool. Graduation day between terms so happy kids and parents running around between the colored parasols of flower-sellers; determined ajummas twisting roses and wrappings into photographs.

Nice-uh!

Photographic Recursivity?

Looking at Jonathan Morse's cool photography site (which you should all visit forthwith, and if you do I'll save you some groaner of a joke about "thirdwith", or worse, "sandwhich") I saw a picture of some poor cowering punk being photographed by press photographers (with those truly intimidating big-flash units that they used in the day) that made me wonder.

Who has taken the most recursive photograph?

I include here three different "single-recursions" that I liked.

The first one on the left is the classic photo of the photographer at work. And it has to be work just to carry around the kit that dude has.

Really, check out the lens on that camera on his back! He's either a professional or he really has something he's compensating for.

The second is the equally classic reflection photo (which unfortunately just reminded me of the dude who used to put pictures on ebay in which his nude reflection was on the item for sale).That one is from NASA, and they were kind enough to take the time to enhance the reflection in the visor. What can't you do on a Hollywood soundstage?



The third is the party-favorite, taking a picture of the person taking a picture of you.



But it is not enough! All these photos (below) make me want to do is go to a car-show in Seoul and snap a picture of the guy who is always snapping a picture of the 50 guys who are snapping pictures of the car models (In fact, at these car shows, the cars go pretty much un-attended in favor of the models. Sensible, really).

Or, get even more meta (somehow) - line 10 people up and have the first two take pictures of each other, 3 takes pictures of the first two, 4 of those three, etc...

Why?

Because someone has to do the really dumb shit!

Guiness World Record folks, where are you?

Just a Reminder

For those of you who don't do it.. Please go be bored senseless by my KorLit blog, so it looks good in the KTO contest I'm (supposedly) entered in.

Your reward will come in the next life.

i R fAmuZZZ!

I can't tell if the photo makes it look like I'm looking, presciently, into the future, or have had a stroke and just not fallen yet.

In any case.. it's my second bite in the KT

The Reason Korea Has No Nobel Prizes for Literature

Its language is just TOO good! LOL. I have this off to the BKF to make sure the translation is correct.

A "lyric"(?) written on IM to the OAF on Occasion of an Insult to her by an Idiot

There is a subtle pulse to things
Precise time insists upon
A steady march of morons, dreams
The impulse to be gone

Also an interred counterpoint
Beating below the ground
Where we meet in unmortised space
But no soul can be found

There all scratching pecking fools
Are pecked and scratched upon
In eternal space, now so confined
Their happy malice gone.

I are Ubiquitous!

Some other time (I'm too lazy to find the post), I noted that if waegukin go to festivals in Korea, they run the risk of being immortalized in print. Now I see it is more.

Back from the States, I'm sitting with the OAF watching Arirang, which has mysteriously finally showed up on my cable now that I'm about to leave for Seoul. I am nearly unconscious from this ague I have, but even through the haze, I see a flash of something on the TV screen..

a brief glimpse of a tremendously handsome man; chiseled features, a noble brow, eyes that seem to penetrate the universe itself, his equanimity, grace, and wisdom pour through the screen.

Yep,

It was me... Check out at about 45 seconds into this bad boy...

What to do..

Apparently the Civil Defense Office joins our intrepid old-lady from the previous post in recommending dildoes for just about any problem you might have.

And now I have a new hypochondria health worry . My blood pressure sometimes drops directly after I exercise.

Google thoughtfully reveals that this is a sign of early heart disease and that I am certain to die young (well, as young as I can at this advanced age).

As many of my schemes were premised on immortality, I feel that this is a bit of a blow to them.

I'll get back to you all with the rethink on my plans. Maybe tomorrow - if I live that long!

Suwheeet!

The long missing Peace Education Conference just contacted me, and I am presenting on September 27th, in the afternoon.

Book me that ticket to Seoul!

And, or course, BKF is co-writer on the paper, so it's a win all around....

now.. I must party... they will find me just like they found Heath Ledger...

well, except he was fit and handsome.. but you know what I mean. ;-)

The 4th of July was pretty epic fun. Particularly since it started with not plan in mind. Out on the street, as I was heading to the store, I ran into a couple of folks from my building as they headed off to buy things including fireworks.

I ran with them a way (there was some promise of fireworks being available at a small store, but it turned out to be no more than sparklers), and then turned back to the lovely solace of air-conditioning and soju.

But a few hours later my phone rang and as I ran in from the deck to answer it, I heard banging in the stairwell. This was ADAM and his family, and Thumper McStomp heading up to BPU to set off fireworks on the soccer pitch (essentially sand formed into cement by generations of Korean spit). I brought my camera so that I could take pictures.

We were headed to the soccer pitch because this same group had started to set fireworks off by the second river but had received a group hairy-eyeball from a bunch of Koreans who were preparing for their weekly session in which they dress up as cows and protest pretty much anything that they can think of. In this case, it could have been fireworks, and ADAM and Thumper Mac didn't want to get into any of that. The soccer pitch had the advantage of NOT being the location of a demonstration as well as plenty of free space.

They began setting off Roman Candles (Korean fireworks are splendidly not-safe and not-sane) and all of a sudden a whistle began to blow from the building behind us. Thumper didn't seem to hear it and casually lit another Roman Candle. This cause the whistling to increase to a mighty level and Thumper heard it, but had just lit the fuse on a 10-ball Roman Candle. As each ball sped into the night sky, the guy with the whistle went a bit louder and a bit higher.

It seemed endless, but finally Thumper's Roman Candle guttered out and a security guy from another building came over and told us that we'd need a permit from the college to do things on the soccer pitch.

Oh well, chased away from the 4th of July twice now.

So it was back to the apartment and the certain solace of soju, where an hour later I heard English-speakers on the street. Once again it was Adam, this time with two other instructors in tow. They had bags of un-safe and insande fireworks and a two-liter plastic container of some ferocious rice-wine that they had purchased from a monastery (they said). A few more calls and we had a group of about 7 people and we headed, noisily I'm afraid, down to the closest confluence of a rivulet and something approaching a creek. There we proceeded to shoot of about an hour of fireworks and drink the rice-wine and some beer we had purchased on the way.

Thumper Mac was a bit drunk and both loathing and loving his wife's imminent arrival in Korea. This manifested itself in drunken male-bonding and alternating hollers of, "it's great to be a man," and "it's great to have a dick!" All this noise and light brought local Koreans out several of whom said something too us, but it was too indistinct to understand and they soon became bored with watching the waeguks have fun. A bit later a second group came out to watch us including one guy with a flashlight and another who just stood behind us and watched (the photo of the watcher). One brave woman actually wandered down the embankment and cadged a beer of off us. She stayed only long enough to drink it, and then scarpered back up the encampment.

The entire scene was a bit surreal (particularly as it all took place under the watchful eye of a neon church-cross) and this was exacerbated by the fact that, just that day, there had been an oil spill in the rivulet, so the water was greasily reflective and covered in swirly patterns.

I went home and the first song on the iPod was "Right Next Door to Hell" which I thought was just about right.

In that sacreligious spirit I leave you with a picture of Thumper Mac committing acts of indecency as the cross upon which Jesus died to forgive our sin looks sadly down.

Biggish Day?

Today I head up with the BKF to Bigger City to meet with Yun-Hyang Lee of Ewha University and Vania Haam of the ATA Korean wing. I think this is something like a job interview at best and another character check at worst.

So I spent last night resurrecting a thing from the past, the "Briefcase full of BS." In this case it is a lovely brown-leather traveling case with my updated CV, two copies of my review of Cho Sehui's The Dwarf (for Ed, you know! It would be a coincidence if a copy happened to appear in front of the Women of Ewha. Coincidence I say), my new cards and several articles about Korean history and literature. Also, of course, a dog-eared and annotated copy of The Dwarf. Let's hope no one of the crew I'm meeting are of the "pristine book" religion.

In any case, as the plan was to pick me up at 9, the BKF will be here around 10 and then it will be off to whatever it is.

On the other side of this coin, the planning process at work seems to be going well, although I frequently find myself arguing on the side of the consultant and not my president, who occasionally goes OCD over some PowerPoint slide or arcane piece of data that is generally unimportant while we are still discussing meta issues. I also wish the consultant would learn to recognize when the president has dropped one of his little jewels (normally a metaphor he is proud of, a joke, or some story) so that the president would not have to continue repeating these until they are acknowledged. It really slows things down. Not so much as the Pres being in charge of the Powerpoint (it hurts to watch someone struggle to do something relatively simple. But you grab the mouse out of the President's manly and noble hand only at the risk of your continued employment).

Ah well... it's a lovely day in Big City and I have 30 minutes or so to enjoy before the Embassy arrives. And the landlady is gone all next week, so I shall have privacy.

For what, God knows, but it is good to know it is there.

Finally, my favorite self-absorbed blogger continues to struggle under the massive weight of the beauty and solemnity that she so gracefully carries...

My inner introvert lets out a sigh and bemoans the fact that I am already popular

Alas.. struggle on Namaste, struggle on!

My Favorite Self-Absorbed Blogger

Is Namaste by a mile.. Check out this classic

Guapo, as he henceforth shall be called, lives on a side of DC that is in the process of receiving what some folks like to call a remedial "face lift". I, for one, happen to feel right at home here. The first day after my arrival, we bellied up to the bar for breakfast at a place down the street, where Spanish is the first and only language and the fried plantains are simply divine. Further down the street, we continued our feast on enchiladas and two Coronas at a place where the jeans are skin tight and even the jukebox speaks Spanish. Guapo laughs good-naturedly that between my bus trips and grocery shopping adventures, I have become a rather popular figure in the local community. Four months in the Middle East have me haggling with the street vendors for better prices on mangos, which Guapo patiently says has nothing to do with my popularity..

Classic stuff. Her topic, barely disguised by self-serving cultural analysis, is her own "popularity." And babydoll can turn anything into herself, normally with a beautiful slap at some sort of un-named class she can't stand for not being cool. After all.. "some folks" like to call things a "remedial 'face lift'" and those are the people who don't like Spanish, beer for breakfast and skin-tight jeans.

Do you get it. Really GET it? Those people aren't cool.

Heck (Hell, maybe!), Namaste digs the urban scene "I'm one of those people who actually finds the American suburbs more creepy and disturbing than the alley where the local drug users leave their needles." She is the loner! She is "radically different within." She is "not a part of a herd."

These 300 or so words of self-stroking are a two paragraph introduction to a substantially shorter section in which she admits she likes the United States.... because it is more convenient for her to shop there...

Namaste, Namaste, all is Namaste... ;-)