Delightin' And Instructin' And Stuff

Kingston Rudieska & Dr. Ring Ring, "Discovery of Life"

First week of teaching is in the bag.  I've got one of the better departments this semester, and the withering Daegu summer might finally be starting to recede back to hell.

So here's some Korean ska just because.

Four Ways Of Looking At Dhalgren

While I may have damned Dhalgren and, by extension, Samuel Delany with faint praise recently, I have to say I'm absolutely blown away by the simple and clear designs found on his work by e-book publishers Open Road Media.

Here's the cover art I was familiar with:

Not bad at all.  Definitely 70s-ish and pulpy, with a pretty literal visual translation of The Kid and his "gang" going about their survival business in the smoky ruins of Bellona.

Here's a more recent one:

Even better in my opinion, maintaining a sense of a mysterious, doomed city, but also playing with the orchid motif.

Here's another recent one:

Very noir-ish, but somehow giving something of a portrait to The Kid doesn't sit right with me.  But the incorporation of the dual moons is nice.

Anyhow, here's the (electronic) copy cover of what I read:

I absolutely love the simplicity, and the emphasis on a bridge (entrances and exits) to Bellona, rather than the ruined city in itself.

I'd say the fourth is my favorite, with the second one being very close.  The first is pretty much iconic at this point, while the third one just doesn't sit right with me.  It's not a bad cover in itself, but it doesn't fit the tone.

Have I mentioned that as frustrating a read as Dhalgren is, it will absolutely stay with you if you manage to get through it all?  Make you do blog posts about the history of its cover art, even?

"there were movie theaters and taco stands and parks where people had planted flowers"

“Life was good. I knew it. Tomatoes tasted good. A cold Coke in a glass bottle was good. There were movie theaters and taco stands and parks where people had planted flowers. There were violent rainstorms. Stopping everything to watch The Godfather and The Godfather Part II (if not III) back-to-back was good. Great white sharks were good. The water buffalos in the Museum of Natural History were good—perfect specimens and, if you are feeling spiritual, evidence of God. Yes, a second war was about to begin; yes, the Yankees had started to suck again; yes, the new mayor, Michael Bloomberg, was talking about banning cigarette smoking in bars. But was that really a reason to fall asleep every night praying not to wake up? I knew I was lucky. I knew I had built a good life for myself. I’d escaped Long Island. I’d made it to the city. I’d become an artist. My only real problem—the one that superseded all others, including the drugs and the temper and the punk rock attitude—was that this was all I was.”

-- Marc Spitz, Poseur

"in the grammar of another city"

“Today I cut down the block where I'd heard the scorpions had their nest.  'What kind of street do they live on?' In the grammar of another city, that sentence would hold the implication: What kind of street are they more or less constrained by society to live on, given their semi-outlaw status, their egregious manner and outfit, and the economics of their asocial position? In Bellona, however, the same words imply a complex freedom, a choice from hovel to mansion—complex because every hovel and every mansion sustains through that choice some remnant of our ineffable catastrophe: In any house here movement from room to room is a journey from a place where twin moons have cast double shadows of the windowsills upon the floors to a place where once, because the sun had grown so immense, no shadow was cast at all. We speak another language here. Is the real importance of this chapbook that I’ve been browsing over all morning that, unlike the newspaper, it is the only thing in the city written in this language? If it is the only thing said, by default it must be the best thing. Anyone sensitive to language, living in this mess/miasma, must applaud it. Is there any line in it, however, that would be comprehensible outside city limits?”

-- Samuel Delany, Dhalgren

(This Is A Post About My Recent Trip Back To America, If It Wasn't Obvious Enough Already)

It's comforting to think that your parents will age with grace and perspective and a clear-eyed acknowledgement that things like sore joints and bad hearing and slips of mental acuity are just the way it goes, given the constraints of this mortal coil.

But chances are, they'll just stew in bitterness and turn to FOX News and #MAGA and white resentment and a fear of invisible, literally non-existent black and brown criminals creeping about at night.

You will struggle not to hate them.  You will struggle to try and put it all into some sort of fractured perspective.

You will sometimes fail  --  at the second thing not so much, but at the first?  Sometimes.

Private Son, Marching On

An update to this post about Son Heung-min, currently South Korea's best soccer player by far, playing his heart out in order to forego a mandatory two years of military service.

While falling out of World Cup 2018 (but beating Germany!) the Red Devils are currently two games away from a championship in the Asian Games (in Indonesia this year).

First off, these are not World Cups squads.  Teams must be under 23 but are allowed three "white cards" for players who are older.  (Son Heung-min is 26, and barring victory would have to begin his service before the age of 28).

South Korea squeaked by Uzbekistan (not good), and now face Vietnam in the semi (very good!).  They'll probably face Japan if they make the final, and that'll be a tough match given the national rivalry no matter what.

Back To The (Usually Quite Mild) Grind

First week of classes is always so needlessly stressful. Not to sound like a lazy git, but I've literally been doing this for a decade now.

— Stormy Jamesiels (@wetcasements) August 27, 2018

Summer Reading

As usual, there isn't much to do in Bellingham other than read.  These days I find myself starting two or three books at once, so actually sitting down and finishing the things feels good.  So what did I read?

Poseur: A Memoir of Downtown New York In The '90s by Marc Spitz

Just about everybody you'd expect (never take Chloe Sevigny to a hipster bar and expect to walk out with her), and tons of people you wouldn't (Peter Dinklage!) make appearances in this brutally honest tale of a junkie, playwright, novelist, and music journalist.  I breezed through it because even when it's dark it's still funny as hell.  Spitz died at 47 in 2017, even as the end of the book presents his life in fairly optimistic terms as having come to terms with his drinking and drug use fairly thick veils of darkness.

Meet Me In The Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock and Roll In New York City 2001-2011 by Lizzy Goodman

Goodman actually appears in Spitz's book as a former girlfriend, and I had no idea about the connection before downloading these two.  The problem is, it's not really a book.  It's quite literally a cut-and-paste job of quotations from band members and journalists.  I pretty much decided to skip it when I figured out what was going on, but a few days later I used the search function to just focus on the bands I was interested in.  For better or worse, it's heavy on The Strokes.  But there are chapters focusing on DC-to-NY transplants Jonathan Fire*Eater (who later became The Walkmen).  Also, there's only one very small bit regarding Les Savy Fav, and nothing about Frenchkiss Records.  Boo.

The Prodigal Tongue: The Love-Hate Relationship Between American and British English by Lynne Murphy

Another book that's more rewarding as a sort of browse-as-you-go collection of interesting bits and bobs, Lynne does a terrific job of blending history and cultural norms to try and figure out just how British and American English got so twisted up over the centuries.  Even a simple discussion as to how we differ in our usage of "please" (British people think you're a brutish asshole if you don't use it, Americans tend to think you're a groveling asshole if you use it too much) turns into something funny and weird and even a bit tense.

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies In a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou

I've been morbidly fascinated all along by the saga of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos.  A Stanford dropout/tech hype wunderkind, she built a nine billion dollar company on the medical lab equivalent of vaporware.  She got some of the richest and most "important" people in America (Kissinger ffs!) to serve on her board of directors.  And it was all, at the end of the day, a pretty transparent grift.  From intentionally deepening her voice in interviews to dating the CFO, a creepy guy 20 years older than her, this is a story that pretty much defines where we are as a global economy in the throes of late capitalism, eating our own tail and running on the the fumes of bullshit MBA talk and the insane belief that another Steve Jobs-like tech Messiah will save us all.  In fact, the next one will probably murder us.

Dhalgren by Samuel Delany

A torpid but intense headache manifested as an 800 page novel, where nothing much happens until the last 30 pages.  Also, lots of rapey bits.  Worth the effort and confusion and, frankly, utter discomfort?  Surprisingly, yes.

RIP To The Queen

Aretha Franklin, "How Deep Is The Ocean?"

Good night, Aretha.

Back In The ROK

Made it home after 22 hours of travel.

Things are OK.  Sister and nephew are doing awesome, my Dad is a bit of a train-wreck.

It's nice to be back but I miss Baltimore.  Bellingham, not so much.

Bloggity Update

Blogging is light this week as I'm preparing for my annual trip to America come this Monday.  I'll be away for about three weeks, then I'll return to lurvely Daegu for the fall semester of teaching.

It'll be my second visit to America under Trumpolini, for what it's worth.