"Honey don't you know we too will pulse in through this light"

Hiatus Kaiyote, "Nakamarra"

As my body and mind sink further into decrepitude I guess you could describe my musical tastes these days as "pleasant-sounding but slightly subversive shit."  Also, this song is gorgeous.

Happy Thanksgiving from sunny and slightly cool and always lurvely Daegu.  I've got a few more weeks of college teaching before the final, and next week I'll begin a new session with my adult students.  I'm about to finish N. K. Jemisin's Broken Earth series and I'll probably say a little something about it soon.  (Beyond, it's pretty good stuff.)  I'm officially no longer following football, but my sister says I have to root for the Saints and I mean, how can I say no to that?

For you Americans, enjoy the long weekend.  I'm sure Trump will do at least five different things to spoil it but hey, nobody said Late Capitalism would be easy.

"a moody teenager hilariously incapable of remembering or articulating why he’s moody"

Phil Christman on the importance of -- the joys of -- bad movies:

"My most memorable experiences of art include A Brighter Summer Day, Jules and Jim, Only Angels Have Wings. They also include Robot Monster, Glen or Glenda?, Godzilla vs. Megalon. The love of bad movies has made me both more observant, and more tolerant, of the little inadvertencies that crop up even in the greatest works. If, as a child, I loved Hitchcock’s Notorious because it was an exciting adventure story, a lifetime of watching incoherent, ideologically-at-war-with-themselves movies has made me appreciate the way Notorious is also far too sunken in its own weirdness to notice how conflicted it is about women.

My father and I still regularly talk about bad movies we’ve seen. During our Sunday phone calls, when things turn contentious, our mutual interest in bad cinema serves as a hedge against topics we’re better off not discussing, chiefly politics. Regarding which: I am disappointed in him, he is disappointed in me. To put it this way is to frame the thing liberally, as though I were to say, We are the same on the inside, but kept apart by meaningless ideological preferences. But I don’t want to frame the thing liberally. I believe that I am right to be a leftist and that he is wrong to be a conservative. I have worked very hard, as has he, trying to be right about things. I learned from him that ideas matter, that it’s worth trying hard to be right about them. But one of the ideas that I believe matters, one of the things I believe I am right about, is that the pain he has when we fight is morally significant, not only to me, because he is my dad, but in some abstract moral sense, because he is a person. And I know from bitter experience that I cannot bend him to the left, which means that when we discuss politics we both suffer pointlessly."

Definitely worth reading the whole thing.

"the fact that they are getting improper help makes me angry"

Moon Jae-in, the liberal South Korean president who replaced the conservative (and impeached) Park Geun-hye, is having a hard time keeping his election promise to make it easier for younger Koreans to find quality full-time jobs:

"I can’t complain that we have different starting lines,” said Kim Jae-hoon, 26, who also lives in a goshi-won [short-term rental apartment] cubicle.

'But it makes me angry that there are people who are getting help improperly. It’s OK that someone was studying when I had to be working, but the fact that they are getting improper help makes me angry.'

Kim works as a part-time waiter at a bar near his school and gets by on 400,000 won a month for rent, food and allowances.

Most meals are 'cup rice' he prepares in the shared kitchen, menial fare of rice and basic toppings - eggs, half an onion and sauce.

Young, low-income voters like Kim have deserted Moon in record numbers."

It's always problematic to draw parallels between Korean and U.S. politics but I'd only add that as an Elizabeth Warren / Kamala Harris supporter, the fact is that without taking back the Senate almost nothing of true substance can occur with a "Moscow Mitch" still in charge.

The point being, politics is all about making promises, but they can bite you in the ass even if you do manage to win.

Deep Political Thoughts, On The Internet Of Course

the one thing Capitalism is really good at is making you and everybody around you as fucking miserable as possible

— Mellowy Fruitful Autumn James (@wetcasements) November 26, 2019

"pay so much for a little bit of pleasure"

Could a sin tax on sugar, like the ones levied on alcohol and tobacco, prevent heart disease and childhood obesity?  Or is it ridiculous to compare candy to smokes and booze?  Norway and Sweden are engaged in a min-trade war to find out:

"'A lot of products are cheaper in Sweden than in Norway,' Bergland said. 'Alcohol, tobacco, plenty of stuff. Cross-border shopping has happened for decades. But candy and soft drinks are a lot cheaper. A whole, whole lot cheaper.'

Matilda Nordholm, 24, who drove to Långflon, two hours from her home near Lillehammer, for her most recent sugar fix, spending about £150 – 'Not all for me, though' – was critical.

'It’s not right, what these products cost in Norway,' she said. 'It’s not normal, and every year it seems the price goes up again, and there’s more tax. People here are more and more unhappy they have to pay so much for a little bit of pleasure.'”

It's hard to imagine there was a time when sugar was actually quite expensive.

Three Simple Truisms Regarding American Politics And Gender

One:

We exist in a media environment where obviously intelligent and accomplished women like Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, and Hillary Clinton before them are to be faulted for being "too shrill," "too smart," or even (dear fucking god) "too prepared."

Meanwhile, obviously near-senile men like Joe Biden can make gaffe after gaffe and remain "likable" and "relate-able."  Smart but objectively less experienced men like Buttigieg don't even have to take the same "approach-able, not a total bitch" test that women do.  They pass automatically, because the son of academics is somehow always, at all times more "down to earth" than a woman who grew up actually working class and entirely self-made.

And really, let's revel in the pure wisdom of our David Gergens -- to dare to be a smart women in America ca. 2019, to be "too prepared" so to speak, is to really mean you're a shrill "hectoring" bitch who needs to shut about it and everything else.

Two:

And of course, we Democrats must always bend our ear to Republican men (well, Independent since 2017) telling us who our best bets are against Cheeto Hitler.  Oh, and Megan McCain too of course, because the Princess of Arizona will not be ignored!

It may come as a shock that the inverse of this -- Republicans must always listen to advice from Democrats -- is not ever true !  Never, ever!  (To the fainting couch!)

Three:

There aren't enough vomit bags and / or bottles of Jameson for me to make it another 12 months.

"mass panic there for a good hour and a half"

At Syracuse University, students are literally fleeing due to a toxic combination of racism and gun-nuttery:

"'In those two to three minutes, students had already gotten a hold of it,' Hatchett said. 'We started getting panicked messages from students, who again, want to know, "Are we on lockdown?" "Do we need to evacuate?" "I called my mom, she wants me to get on a flight, like, right away."' So it was almost mass panic there for a good hour and a half before we finally figured out that everything was calm and safe.

'There wasn’t any concern that there was an active shooter in the building, but there was a concern that it would be happening sometime today. At that point, a lot of people just wanted to get as far away from here as they could.'"

This is a quality university in what is usually known as a fairly safe area.  This is life in America ca. 2019, where a mix of racism and racist ideology masquerading as "muh free speech" and the ability of anyone, regardless of criminal or psychological background, to buy a military-grade assault weapon on a whim, has allowed its citizens to have such unprecedented "freedoms" and "rights."  (To be shot in the face by an angry white guy, perhaps.)

Other countries simply tremble in envy of us, I'm sure of it.

Political Thoughts, On The Internet

becoming pretty clear America was a huge mistake...

— Mellowy Fruitful Autumn James (@wetcasements) November 20, 2019

Animal Welfare In South Korea Is (Hopefully) A Growing Trend

I'll be blunt -- one of the worst things about living in Korea is the lack of awareness surrounding issues of animal welfare.  Obviously debates about dog meat are a thing (IMO it's a bad thing, but relatively minor compared to large-scale factory farming in America) but I'm talking more about the common treatment of pets.  I've seen dogs kept on extremely short leashes for entire weekends, all alone.  I've seen poodles tied by the collar to the door handles of chic cafes, having to stand on their toes just to breathe properly.  And if you think that's bad for the puppers, stray cats are treated with the same level of contempt as rodents here.

Anyhow, things might be changing for the better as "Animal Rights" are a growing concern, especially with younger South Koreans:

"In many cases, the organizations or police are sent away from the abusers’ homes as they remain adamant, arguing for the ownership of their pets. But the organizations persist until they relent.

'Taeyangi’s owner was indignant because he really didn’t think there was anything wrong with abusing his dog, as it is his property,' said Ahn. 'So we had to guide him along a step-by-step process to rationally convince him that what he did was wrong. I asked him, "If I slap you on the face, would that be right? and he said No." So I told him that’s basically what he did to his dog, and that he abused Taeyangi.'

'The number of tips about animal violence are increasing day by day,' said Ahn. 'Based on our experience, the reason behind owners abusing their animals lies in the fact that they resolve their rage upon a weaker being, not because they hate animals.'

The animal rights organizations are all calling for one thing: stricter enforcement of the legal punishments for animal abuse so that abusers will face a degree of punishment that correlates to the level of their cruelty. Moreover, they want the law to become stricter so that people will recognize animals as living beings instead of as their property."

Obviously, this is a trend that I can only hope will continue to grow.

Yawn

Four episodes into a nine episode run, and I think I'm done with Watchmen.  Using the Tulsa white supremacy riots of 1921 as a backdrop offered an intriguing start, but it's been downhill since then.

Glancing around at various sci-fi review outlets I see that I'm in a distinct minority.  What they see as a slow and thoughtful reveal of facts just seems pretentious and dull to me.

More bluntly, I just don't like any of these people.  I don't understand what motivates any of them.  (Even as horrible as Rorscach and Ozymandias were in the comic book, you can at least understand why they do what they do.)

And given that we're almost at the halfway mark, it doesn't help that we're still introducing main characters.

Boo.

New Books!

New end-of-year books!

N.K. Jemisin, The Stone Sky

Trina Robbins, Last Girl Standing

Kim Stanley Robinson, The Wild Shore

Kim Stanley Robinson, The Years of Rice and Salt

This was my first time with Book Depository, and they're fine.  I still do miss What The Book? if only because they were a few weeks faster but something about beggars and choosers.

"it's more like people just don't know what it is"

Can a highly traditional and orderly society like South Korea's develop a thriving graffitti / street art culture?  Maybe!  To wit:

"'Honestly, graffiti is just as much of a part of subculture in Korea as it is in other countries, and there are people who don’t like it in other countries too,' said Jay Flow. 'But in Korea, it’s more like people just don’t know what it is. We’re not welcome, and it’s hard. I keep doing it to make an appeal to Korean society, as if we’re having a go at people.'

Jay Flow started spray painting on walls in 2001, when graffiti was not well known in Korea, while Royyal Dog rose to stardom in the United States in 2016 and is known for adding a unique Korean touch to his works. The two close friends collaborated on the main piece of this exhibition, a mural of singer Billie Eilish and Jay Flow’s signature shark humans."

I mean, if you've got Billie Eilish in your corner you're off to a good start.

"some of us grow up instead to be Bari Weiss"

Alex Pareene on the death of "rude media," (e.g., Gawker, Deadspin) because being rude means being honest about the overpaid cretins who run the world:

"But writers whose insufficient deference to power rendered them unemployable by The New York Times still had, until recently, hope of finding employment elsewhere. When I was growing up, every major American metro area had both a polite press—the local dailies—and a rude one: the alt-weeklies. The alt-weeklies were funded by advertisers the family-friendly media wanted nothing to do with. Craigslist put a large dent in that revenue (and the government has now effectively banned much of it), and Facebook vacuumed up the rest of it, leading to the alternative press’ rapid decline. But it was not merely the market speaking: In the end, many of these publications were also simply killed by rich idiot owners or corporations that routinely purchase publications and ruin them out of both greed and incompetence. And so we (mostly) don’t have alt-weeklies anymore.

Still, we thought as we watched this process, it was fine, because, after all, we had blogs! Blogs were a refreshing novelty in the rapidly constricting world of print because they were allowed to be rude. This made many people—primarily people whose most consistent belief is that they are owed deference because of their social or professional status—outraged. David Denby, America’s worst living film critic, actually wrote a book about how much he detested this rhetorical mode he couldn’t even accurately describe."

I'll be the 1,000th person to point out the obvious as well -- Deadspin was actually profitable, but got killed by suits who had no idea that plenty of sports fans actually care about the larger world as well, and happen to vote for Democrats.  But he's right that the larger problem is that calls for "civility" have really come to mean "never criticize the powerful or the privileged."

Also, this kills:

"Rudeness is not merely a tone. It is an attitude. The defining quality of rude media is skepticism about power, and a refusal to respect the niceties that power depends on to disguise itself and maintain its dominance. It’s often hard for me to imagine that anyone can grow up in this era and not end up doubting the competence and motives of nearly everyone in charge of nearly every American institution, but some of us grow up instead to be Bari Weiss."

Enough said.

Vegan Doshirak!

I know, it's a terrible picture.  I'm still having a hard time figuring out how to get decent low-light pictures on my new (used) smartphone.

One of the questions I ask during my first week of classes, our Introductions unit, is what my students' favorite foods are.  A common answer is "meat."  Then I explain that "meat" sounds strange in English, like you're a dinosaur.  You should instead say "beef" or "steak" or "pork."

The point is, Koreans love meat.  Being a vegetarian or (god forbid) a vegan here is pretty much impossible unless you're willing to do all of your cooking at home.

So anyhow, I'd heard that meatless products were making inroads into the country, and last night after work I picked up my first vegan box-lunch.  (Koreans call them "doshirak," ready-made convenience store meals basically.)

And guess what?  It was pretty good.

Here we have some chunked up roasted squash, and then penne pasta with a "bean meat" (콩 고기) meatless flourish.

I thought it tasted fine cold, but 30 or 40 seconds in the microwave would also be an option.

This cost me three bucks and, to cut to the chase, I'd eat it again.  Not bad at all, and I'm curious to see if companies are actually going to make profits in this notoriously meat-centric country.

"adjusting to each other’s lagom, while using nunchi"

An interview with the Swedish ambassador to South Korea, and the similarities between the two cultures:

"Lagom, a way of striving for balance, is a concept that many Swedes apply in their daily lives without even thinking about it - it could be during their dinner conversations, in the way they consume and design products or even in the way of diplomacy.

'Not the middle. Not average. Not complacency. Just right,” wrote Lola Akinmade Akerstrom in her book, 'Lagom: The Swedish Secret of Living Well' (2017).

Nunchi is the Korean art of listening to and gauging other people in social settings that makes one a master of unspoken communications.

Korea and Sweden celebrated 60 years of their diplomatic ties this year. The ties have never been stronger, Hallgren said, and that may be attributed to the fact that many Koreans and Swedes grow up adjusting to each other’s lagom, while using nunchi."

My Korean adult students told me that nunchi is usually a good thing, but can also be a passive, shut-up when elders or seniors are talking, thing.

Watchmen, So Far -- With Spoilers

I'm absolutely flummoxed by the new Watchmen series.

It had an intriguing start, setting up a universe where the effects of the Tulsa white terrorism riots of 1921 would reckon with the events of the Watchmen comic series (1985).  Episode two was kind of dull.  Then episode three brings back a major character from the comic with little to no explanation of what's been going on for the past 35 years, other than that she's an ex-superhero who hates superheroes (or, properly, "vigilantes.")

I don't expect a good series to hold your hand at every turn, but I found myself scratching my head in sympathy for anybody who hasn't recently read the comic.  And no, seeing the Zak Snyder film (2009) only goes so far, because in the TV universe the "canon" ending has occurred, not the Snyder plot change.  (Spoiler: the comic ending saw the US and USSR reconcile, but only after the horrific death of half of New York City, as opposed to Snyder's "Doctor Manhattan is gonna kill us all we must be friends now!")

So I'll watch the rest.  I think.  I don't know.  The latest episode swayed quickly between pretentious and tedious.  It's hard to care about these characters when the whole series so far is premised on the fact that you've "done your homework," so to speak.

That's annoying.

And the big blue dildo thing wasn't clever, it was very stupid.  Silk Specter would have moved on by now.

What's In A Flag?

With the Tokyo Olympics coming up in the summer of 2020, passions are high regarding a penchant for some Japanese people to continue waving the Korean Imperial ("Rising Sun") flag:

"Japanese athletes and fans regularly sport their national flag – a red ball centred on white. The rising sun symbol is different, however. A red ball with 16 red rays, it is sometimes used by companies in advertisements, yet it is technically a military flag: from 1870 until the end of the second world war, it was imperial Japan’s war flag. Since 1954, a renewed version of the rising sun has been the banner of the Japanese navy, known as the Japan Maritime Self-Defence Force.

South Korea, which was under Japanese rule from 1910 until 1945, has asked Japan to ban the flag from Olympic stands next year. Tokyo has so far refused, explaining that the flag is 'widely used in Japan' and is 'not considered a political statement'. But it is not Japan’s national flag, so the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has the authority to exclude it from the Tokyo Games. The leaders of the IOC, together with athletes and their supporters from around the world, should take note of the flag’s history, and how it is, in fact, used to make a particular political statement in Japan today.

For the Japanese right, flying the rising sun flag is part of a collective effort to cleanse the history of imperial Japan’s aggression during the second world war. It appears in the promotional literature and on the websites of groups such as the Zaitokukai, whose members march with signs reading, 'Koreans should be massacred!', and the Nippon Kaigi, which counts the Japanese prime minister, Shinzō Abe, among its members, and has described the second world war in Asia as a 'holy war of liberation'."

The article touches on the fact that South Korea should hardly be alone in being angry at Japan, considering the damage wrought against pretty much all of Asia (even Australia) during before and during World War II.

Second, if you tried waving a Nazi flag in Germany today you'd be arrested.  The same thing should go for waving the Rising Sun in Japan, or the Confederate flag in America.

Your hateful ideology lost.  Get over it.

"'discovered' by adventuresome white diners"

"Chinese restaurants changed or evolved over time.  Chinese immigrants from Guangdong province started 'chow chows' around the mid-1800s to serve familiar Cantonese dishes that fit the tastes of their countrymen.  These restaurants were located in 'Chinatowns' near large populations of Chinese, their primary source of customers.  They held limited appeal to most non-Chinese when they first appeared.

In the transition to the industrialized society of the last half of the 19th century, a restaurant industry grew rapidly as more people lived in cities than in rural areas.  However, most whites did not patronize Chinese cafes frequently, if at all.  They generally viewed foreign foods as strange and odd.  Few had any interest in eating dishes served by Chinese cafes and restaurants.

However, from the late 1890s to the early 1900s, a surprising reversal of fortune took place for Chinese restaurants. . . .  Even with little or no promotion by the Chinese, their cafes were 'discovered' by adventuresome white diners and the ensuing publicity widened their popularity among non-Chinese.  Prejudices against Chinese immigrants were still strong, but their cuisine was gaining favor.  Restaurants soon became one of the primary forms of self-employment among Chinese.  In Chinatowns, newer, larger, and more elegantly decorated dining facilities were built to attract and accommodate the growing demand.  Partnerships involving both active and silent investors raised capital for the expensive startup costs of remodeling and refurbishing existing facilities or building new ones and for the expenses of hiring numerous cooks, waiters, kitchen helpers, and other staff."

-- John Jung, Sweet and Sour: Life in Chinese Family Restaurants

As an American in South Korea I definitely get strong hunger pangs or cravings once in a while for things you might expect -- stinky cheeses (Korea only does sliced American singles), great pizza (you can find good pizza here, but never great), and purely local memory-foods like Maryland-style boiled blue crabs, served with drawn butter and cans of cold beer, never bottles or pitchers.  I miss American style barbecues as well, either Carolina or Texas versions.  (But if I could only eat Korean style barbecues the rest of my life I'd still die pretty happy.)

What's strange to me are my monthly or so craving for fake-ass, deeply inauthentic Chinese-American food.  I'm talking chicken wings atop greasy fried rice, beef over egg noodles, or oily egg rolls that have been sitting under a heat lamp for half-a-day too long, lathered in packets of hot mustard and duck sauce.

Brains and stomachs and human memories are curious things.

Oh, and on certain weekend mornings I'd probably murder your grandma for a good bagel with cream cheese and unctuous lox.  That's just a complete non-starter here.

Anyhow, Sweet and Sour was a surprisingly good read.