Canon Schmanon

Hephzibah Anderson on popular books (mostly written by dudes) that are actually awful:

"We’ve taken a blushing look back at some of the formerly hip tomes now shelved in that spectral section of the bookshop reserved for the irredeemably dated, the hopelessly irrelevant, the plain offensive. Their fate tells us a little something not only about why cult novels fade but also about how they’re made in the first place.

If there’s one lesson to be learned, it’s this: stay sceptical, dear reader. Don’t, for instance, rush to empty your home of anything that doesn’t ‘spark joy’ at the behest of a book that may yet turn out to be our own era’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull. (Then again, if you do still have a copy of that particular avian-inspired title lurking in your bookcase, now might be a good time to pay a visit to the charity shop.)"

I'm always up for a good hate-on against classics, and I agree with some of this list while a few selections just fly over my head (nobody, including ultra-leftists I knew in graduate school, has ever recommended that I actually read Mao's Little Red Book).

Also, while some of these are pernicious examples of Dead White Male Worship in action, a few are harmless moments of books that are very much "of their times," i.e., dispensable.  I know my mom and dad owned a copy of Jonathan Livingston Seagull and I never read it.  I'm not sure if they did either, but it seems like something you had to own in the 1970's.

The Catcher In The Rye?  A perfect example of a book we assign to high school freshmen due to a lack of imagination.  There are so many better coming-of-age stories out there that don't focus on neurotic teen New Yorkers, that have a broader appeal than smoking cigarettes and hitting on grown women.  Not an awful novel, but certainly not a necessary one.

The Old Man and the Sea?  I like it!  I like Hemingway, drunken Sloppy Joe excesses and all!  But how about the Nick Adams short stories instead, given the context of impending climate disaster?

Atlas Shrugged?  Nobody reads this shit except for Republican congressman, right?  I desperately hope so.  I mean, just a single page is headache-inducing.  Rand hate-wrote for conservatives wanting to hate-read about how poor people deserve it, good and hard.  I guess you could argue it's worth a read, if only to plumb the necrotizing pathologies of Republicanism / Trumpism.  But just a few pages will do, thank you.

No Joy In (Rainy) Daegu

I made it to my final Samsung Lions ball game of the season last Friday night.  With a rain delay adding insult to injury, we lost 3-0 to the SK Wyverns from Incheon.  SK are actually the best team in the league right now, so they'll be moving on to a traditional four team semi-final / final playoff series.

As you can see from my not-so-great picture, it was pretty damn empty.  The ultras behind the Samsung dugout were there though, and they were singing and dancing through.

See you next spring, Lions.

Update:  The KBO actually does a five-team format, with four and five doing a one game wildcard.  Overthinking it, if you ask me.

"We Have To Get Along"

As tensions rise between the governments of South Korea and Japan, no small number of Koreans living in Japan are caught in the political squeeze:

"Young Japanese devotees of South Korea’s most successful cultural export still flock here to buy posters, DVDs and miniature figures of BTS, Tohoshinki and Big Bang, added Choi, who moved to Tokyo from South Korea two decades ago. 'But I hope Japan and South Korea can sort out their differences. We’re neighbours, so we have to get along.'

Relations, however, are far from neighbourly. Seoul has called on the International Olympic Committee to ban Japan’s rising-sun flag – seen by some Koreans as a symbol of Japanese militarism – from next year’s Summer Games in Tokyo. A recent poll found that South Koreans trust North Korea more than they do Japan."

I guess I'm admittedly biased here, but c'mon -- there's a reason Germany long ago outlawed the Nazi flag, but in Japan it's still O.K. to wave the "Rising Sun" battle flag.

"well it's the biggest thing in my life, I guess"

The Replacements, "Talent Show" (Matt Wallace Mix)

Don't Tell A Soul divided Replacements fans at the time as being "too pop" but I dunno, I was listening to this on cassette pretty much non-stop in high school along with (ahem) Appetite For Destruction.  My hormone-addled teenage brain saw no contradictions in this.

Dead Man's Pop is a new Replacements box set, and it's a doozy -- in addition to rarities, a hard-to-find jam with Tom Waits (!), and a smoking live set from Madison, Wisconsin in '89, the highlight is a "pre-mix," or a re-imagining of Don't Tell A Soul after it had been "polished" for radio by Chris Lord-Alge.  If I've got it right, original engineer Matt Wallace sat down with the original tapes, pre-Lord-Alge, and pushed them into rougher, more intimate terrain.

Given that the entire project seems to have Paul Westerberg's blessing, it really is a must-have.  Also, the idea for the re-mix came from Bob Mehr, who is the author of the fantastic Mats biography Trouble Boys.

Honestly, there's a lot going on here and all of it is great.

I actually really like Don't Tell A Soul and have since it came out in 1989.  But being outside the Minneapolis scene, it was easier for me to just appreciate the album for what it was and not get caught up in the "Paul is selling out for mainstream success" stuff.  Mind you, this was only two years before the neutron bomb of Nevermind, and already lines were being drawn that would pave the way for the capital-I Indie Rock movement and the inevitable backlash against, well, success.

If anything, I'd argue DTAS is really a try-out as Paul's first solo record.  We all know his first real solo record was All Shook Down, which of course was The Replacements' last record.

Simple.

As for the sound, it's definitely rougher in a good way, and more ragged.  The acoustic guitar doesn't disappear once the hook of "Talent Show" kicks in, but kind of fills and warms the whole thing.  I'm willing to bet the drums aren't synced to a click track -- there are some interesting little fills, if not minor mistakes.  The whole sounds more like it's recorded in a mom's basement than a real studio.  The outro keeps in all the warts and all, which seems about right.

Anyhow, I really can't wait to get my hands on this and do a track-by-track comparison.

Pitchfork review here.

Sock It To 'Em, G.T.

Esther Wang on the obvious misogyny (and general creepiness) of the older men who criticize Greta Thunberg:

"'Climate change disproportionately affects women and girls around the world—they are more likely to be displaced, more likely to be living in poverty and thus more vulnerable to climate change’s destabilizing effects. It is also women and girls who are leading the global movement to ensure a livable future.'

Yet to conservatives, climate change activism has become wrapped up in the so-called 'war on men,' and Thunberg, as well as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with her championing of the Green New Deal, have come to symbolize all that they fear to lose. But for all their whining and their rage, as Thunberg said on Monday before the United Nations, 'The world is waking up. And change is coming, whether you like it or not.'”

And let's be honest -- "shut up and put on a dress, little girl" isn't criticism at all, it's the desperate plea of men who can't handle strong, smart women.  (Of any age.)

RIP Robert Hunter

Grateful Dead, "Hard to Handle" live '71

I think I've got it now -- my Dead "sweet spot" is when they still had Pigpen and didn't have Mickey Hart.  They were still a bar band, basically, and not taking themselves all that seriously.

I have very mixed feelings about The Grateful Dead, but I did see them live at least twice.  (Maybe a third time?  I'm a walking cliche I guess but I don't remember.)  There are rare moments when I can put on a Youtube video of something from the late 60's or 70's and quietly get some work or grading done.  By the 80's and 90s though everything is off -- sonically, spiritually, (ahem) chemically.

So this is a roundabout way of saying Rest In Peace to Robert Hunter, and to the glory of long, strange trips wherever we may happen to find them.

"Why Waffle House?"

I lived in Charlottesville, Virginia for a few years while doing an M.A. and failing to do a Ph.D.  And I realize anyone who lives or has lived south of Charlottesville, or even the entire state of Virginia, would claim I never experienced the "real" south.

Scientifically speaking, fuck those guys.  I saw plenty enough Confederate flags and monuments to their dead traitors to make it real enough.

Anyhow, I enjoyed this piece on the enduring comfort and legacy of the humble, often gritty, Waffle House franchise:

"There was no way around it. These photographs contemplate our volatile political and economic climate and do so explicitly from the vantage point of Waffle House restaurants. My approach had its own rules: I would eat at every Waffle House I entered and make images only from where I was seated. I wanted to have a complete Waffle House experience every time. Not only did it give the photographs the authenticity I wanted, but it also compensated the restaurant for taking up a table, especially during prime dining hours. I ordered a full breakfast at the first restaurant of the day and would order coffee and a side of toast at the remaining stores, as it was customary for me to visit multiple locations in one day while I was traveling.

Why Waffle House? Why not McDonald's or Hardee's? Three reasons: consistency, personal relationship, and the chain's iconic status. 

I felt that I needed a constant from which to study our built environment, and the relative sameness of Waffle House restaurants allowed me that ability. Whether you like it or not, Waffle House is your neighborhood diner, replicated thousands of times over. The restaurants are relatively the same, architecturally speaking, as are the menu, the prices, and the experience. This replication of experience was the conceptual underpinning of this project, and that repetition is illustrated in the images."

Obviously, you have to click through for the great photographs.

If Not Now?

I've been more patient with Pelosi's dithering on impeachment than others -- she's right that 1) it will never pass a Republican Senate and 2) Clinton actually grew more popular when he became framed as a "victim" of an over-zealous House.

But honestly, fuck all that noise as of now.  We all knew Trump would try and ratfuck 2020 as well, but he's not even hiding it any more.  He's positively gloating about it.

And most significantly, he's broken the law multiple times already and is planning to do so again.

If we don't pull the trigger on Trump, his criminal family / network, and his Republican enablers, impeachment -- let alone the concept of an opposition party -- is meaningless.

Ad Astra -- What I Thunk Of It

We had some wet, humid typhoon action here in lovely South Korea this past weekend, so I pretty much stayed indoors.  I did make it to the movies to see Ad Astra and, as much as I usually like slow, non-action-y sci-fi, it was a dud.  It was dull and ponderous, with Brad Pitt making the same confused face throughout.

It also didn't help that in the near future, people are still really dumb.  We can build a huge colony on the Moon, but if we need to get through "Moon pirate territory" (!?) you'll have to take a crappy Apollo-era buggy with no real armaments or defenses.

It had a few interesting moments but overall the script just wan't up to what it needed to be.

"on your tippy toes creepin'"

The Interrupters, "Bad Guy"

This Billie Eilish cover goes from "clever" to "fucking rad" when the trombone comes in for the first time.  And yes, I'm a grown-ass man who still listens to ska music.

The little man inside of Google who tells me the lovely Daegu weathers says that near-90 degree days have vanished for good, and fall will be here soon.  I'm grateful to say the least.

"the cadence of games"

Emma Baccellieri on the unexpected joys of late season "meaningless baseball":

"The Tigers won, 5-2. It mattered as much as a game between baseball’s two worst teams can matter in September—which is to say, not at all, in any technical sense, unless you’re particularly concerned about the potential draft order for next year. But this technical sense is the objective, macro, big-picture sense. This technical sense may be why professional baseball exists as an enormously profitable business, but it is not why baseball exists. And, of course, there is no one clear answer to that second question—but whatever there is, it’s probably closer to the texture of a game between two terrible teams on September 16 than it is to anything else.

When I miss baseball in the winter, I do not miss the postseason. I do not miss the highlights, I do not miss the debates over who will deserve the Cy Young, I do not miss anything that seems as if it is meant to be remembered. I miss the cadence of games. I miss MLB’s copyright disclaimer on broadcasts. I miss background noise. I miss the Orioles versus the Tigers on September 16."

The Orioles have been terrible for about two decades now, but I still follow them somewhat closely.  If it was possible to listen to them on a Korean radio, as dreadful as they are, I would.

So when I moved to Daegu ten years ago (!) I was excited to have a local team, the Samsung Lions, who were actually quite good.   (They won four consecutive championships between 2011 and 2014).

Of course, they've fallen into mediocrity right on cue.  (Currently in eighth place out of ten squads.)

Still, I love that expression "cadence of games."  Walking home at night through the streets and alleys of Daegu, the fried chicken joints will be playing the Samsung game if it's on.  I check the scores in the morning.  I go to about three or four games a season, but it's those late season "meaningless" ones that somehow charm me much more than they should.  Honestly, I think it has a lot to do with weather -- fall has always been my favorite season, and there is something about days growing shorter rather than longer that makes me want to check out at least one more home game before the season ends.

Just Sayin'

the startling possibility that "edgy" comedians who are persecuted for their brave, insightful jokes are actually, deep down, just unfunny racists.

— Winterfell Barista James (@wetcasements) September 18, 2019

An Alphabet For Everyone?

The creation and history of hangul, the Korean alphabet, is fascinating in and of itself ("among the most phonologically faithful writing systems in use today").  It gets better (worse?) when it comes to modern intrigue surrounding existing artifacts of its creation:

"The Cultural Heritage Administration (CHA) can finally raid the home of Bae Ik-gi, the man who has held and concealed the nationally treasured document 'Huminjeongeum' for the past 11 years. On July 11, The Supreme Court dismissed Bae’s appeal asking the court to stop the CHA from carrying out a forcible extraction. In short, the Supreme Court ultimately ruled that the ownership rights of the Haerye segment of the 'Hunminjeongeum,' which Bae has been hiding, belong to the administration, giving the CHA the green light to take the 'Hunminjeongeum' from Bae by force.

But, the organization is pessimistic that Bae will hand over the 'Hunminjeongeum' despite court’s ruling."

It's a priceless artifact, and its authenticity has been verified.  But the story around this copy of the manuscript is straight out of a Nic Cage movie.

It's also worth noting that Koreans are a bit more sensitive to these issues since so many other national treasures were stolen during the Japanese occupation.

"Nights are gettin' strange"

The Cars, "Since You're Gone" live

They were undoubtedly more a keyboard than a guitar band, but that made Elliot Easton's lead work the ultimate secret weapon.

R.I.P. Ric Ocasek, from a kid who used to take guitar and music very seriously and in high school cut my teeth on covering The Cars' Greatest Hits with a bass player and his older brother on keyboard.  (We eventually hooked up with a drummer but at first we didn't let that little detail stop us.)

I'll also go out on a limb and suggest that image-wise, both for themselves and their album covers, they were way ahead of the game.

Also easy to forget just how many artists Ocasek worked with outside of his main band.

This Is Some Bullshit, South Korea

Koreans are, for lack a a better word, great big fucking babies when it comes to a little rain.  So I took the one hour subway ride out of town to the ball park yesterday, got to the stadium for the five p.m. start, and while it was overcast it was not raining.

Too bad White Devil, game cancelled because rain is not water from clouds, but actually toxic radioactive dragon piss.

What bullshit.

Anyhow, I went back into town and drowned my sorrows with fried chicken and beer and this really excellent Kim Stanley Robinson novel.

Sports fandom, much like life, is highly overrated.

Better Than The Beatles?

The Damned, "Help"

It's the second week of the semester and things are going along swimmingly, but a quirky thing about working in South Korea is that the end of this week is Chuseok, or the rough Korean equivalent of Thanksgiving.  So we've got Thursday off, and already I've got to start juggling make-up classes.  (It could be worse -- it's possible to actually miss Tuesday through Thursday, or Monday through Wednesday.)

The weather is still pushing 90 degrees as well.  Not good.

Usually I'd head down to Busan for a long weekend but I think I'll just stay in Daegu this year.  The Samsung Lions are home this Thursday and Friday, and Daegu FC is playing at home this Sunday.

Autumn Comes To Daegu, South Korea

I officially don't care about NFL football any longer.  The decline in my interest was a long time coming, and arguably if I wasn't born a Washington fan I might still care about some of the younger, better stories in the league.

But I don't.

Rooting for any professional sports team is, nine times out of ten, rooting for a poisonous, racist owner and his horrible, toxic offspring.

So I can't any longer.  (I mean, I'm hardly a Profile in Courage here, just thinking out loud.)

Go Dodgers!

Late Night Insomniac Musings

If only America had a John Bercow of our own.

Completely Unscientific

Billy Eilish, "Bellyache"

My semi-annual poll of Korean college students (first week of class introductions, asked them for favorite singer or band) finds that BTS and BlackPink, the two K-Pop acts currently attempting to cross over to America and Europe, really aren't popular among home-grown K-Pop fans.  I've noticed this before -- the acts that you hear about in Pitchfork or appearing on Letterman, while certainly selling units, aren't necessarily the ones 20 year old Koreans tend to care about back here.

Highly unscientific of me, I realize.  Hell, completely unscientific.  But I'd bet you 5,000 won there's something to it.

Meanwhile,  out of about 150 students so far two have mentioned Billie Eilish as their favorite, and that's cool.

Who says Daegu is a backwater?  (I do!  Frequently!)

Instant Karma

One of the greatest things about living in South Korea is the food.  For about five bucks (at least outside of Seoul) you can sit down in a place with mostly fresh food and stuff your face.  (Those in the know will find places with free refills on kimchi and rice as needed.)

So while it's a little sad, it's also inevitable that instant and ready-made foods are becoming increasingly popular:

"Home meal replacement dishes are a growing trend in the global food industry, gaining popularity not only from young people, but also with older customers. Korea is one of several countries where the growth has gained momentum in the last few years backed by social changes like the rapidly aging society and the increase in single-person households.

Pre-packaged meals used to mean pouches of instant curry filled with mushy vegetables with no real substance, but today the ranges available offer far more palatable options, including recipes designed by famous chefs and ingredients that still retain their original texture.

Due to the improvement in taste and diversity, home meal replacement dishes have helped reduce the time people spend on cooking for special occasions."

As mentioned, South Korea is one of those rare countries where it's generally cheaper to eat out than it is to cook at home.  Hopefully that won't change any time soon.