Making The Rounds

Between multiple farewell dinners out and then two consecutive in-class pizza-and-chicken parties with adult students, it's safe to say I've been in a more sentimental mood than usual.

That said, saying goodbye to my two local convenience store owners (one 7-11, one E-mart) -- my morning coffee and my evening water-and-beer guys -- honesty got me a little choked up.

To balance things out, my office building cleaning lady couldn't have given less of a fuck.

So Long For Now

Dynamic Duo, "Chul-Chek"

I never did take to K-pop.  Korean hip-hop, however, is the balls.  The good stuff, at least.

I'm in my office at lovely Daegu Health College for the last time today, taking care of some stuff.  It's actually freezing outside, but it's supposed to warm up a bit this weekend.  I'm going home to do some more cleaning and packing (haven't started the latter, to be honest), and tomorrow morning I'll get a COVID test (i.e., the "brain Q-tip").  I'll head up to Incheon Airport on Monday.

This is easily the best job I've ever had, and I realize I was very lucky in finding a boss in Korea who was for the most part both supportive and flexible, and willing to let me do my thing as long as the students (both college and adult) were happy.  For the most part, they were.

I'll get to Bellingham Monday and enter a new world of caring full-time for my dad.  I wouldn't say I'm either optimistic or pessimistic about it -- just ready to make sure his needs (at almost 92) are being met.  He's stubborn and fiercely independent though, so what will be tough is walking the line between taking care of him as needed, but not babying him or taking away his sense of power or volition.  His house, his rules, as they say.

I'm looking forward to the mild weather, the beautiful mountain and forest views, and air that is as fresh as fresh gets.  As I close out my to-do list here, I've got a new one for Bellingham as well, but it's not nearly as extensive.  The goal is to adjust and continue from there.  I'll be taking a long walk every morning after coffee with my dad, and probably one in the afternoon as well when he takes a nap.

My dad is scheduled for a vaccine, but not until late March (this is where I mention he's a die-hard Trump supporter).  I'm guessing at best I'll get mine in summer at earliest.  Hell, that could be optimistic.

And from there?  Nobody knows what happens next, other than I'll be living in a nice house in the quietest of neighborhoods five minutes from the border of Canada.

I'm pretty sure I'll read a lot of books.

As for Daegu, I hope this wretched virus gets handled as soon as it's possible.  I want people wandering around eating and drinking and laughing downtown again.  I want the undergraduates back, in person of course, studying hard and goofing off all at the same time.  I want my local movie theater to stay in business if it can.  I want the local restaurants and coffee shops of Chilgok / Northern Daegu to make as much money as possible.  I want to see Samsung Lions Park filled with people cheering and drinking beer and eating fried chicken at yet another spring or summer ballgame.

Samsung usually loses.  I don't care.  True fans know winning is only ever a part of it all.

Project Herzog Update: Family Romance, LLC

You might remember that last spring, in the beginning grips of COVID, I watched and reviewed almost every film by Werner Herzog -- Project Herzog!

I recently saw his 2019 feature Family Romance, LLC.  Unlike his recent output in the feature film category, I really liked this one.  It's a return to form, echoing his early career attempts at parable and questioning reality in Signs of Life and The Unprecedented Defence of the Fortress Deutschkreuz.  Even better, Herzog shot the film guerrilla-style, with no permits or permission, in Tokyo.  If I'm not mistaken, I also think it's also the first time he's used drone cameras.

It's not perfect, but it's beautiful and affecting in its own way.  And as always, Herzog is the master of endings.

Family Romance, LLC is definitely worth your time.  Not his best (those are here) but pretty good and always taking risks (those are here!).

Last Meals Part II

Another last meal with friends, last Saturday for lunch I finally had "Gae-jang," or Soy-Marinated Crab.

Now, I grew up in Maryland.  I worked two summers in a crab house in Annapolis, Maryland (fuck you, Mike).  I know Maryland style crabs pretty well -- a simple boil with Old Bay (season salt).  That's it.  Serve with a knife, a wood mallet, and either melted butter or vinegar.  And beer, preferably by the can.

I hope my crab bona fides have been established.

That said, this blew my mind, because it's conceptually from another planet.

Gae-jang isn't cooked at all.  It's marinated for hours on end in a boiled soy sauce and chili pepper mixture.  What you end up with are quartered crabs, and you kind of suck the white meat from the body.  I tried to get the meat in the legs and claws and well, but the only utensils you get are plastic gloves (you're only supposed to wear one on your left hand).

I really wanted a knife-and-mallet to compete the job, but I take it the body meat is really the centerpiece.

Also, the mustard and roe -- the eggs are great, but the mustard (Tomalley") is considered a delicacy here.

Well, this Maryland dude gave it a shot but man, I've always found the mustard far too bitter for consumption.

However, would I try it again?  Absolutely -- the huge amount of side dishes didn't hurt.

Would I recommend it to a foreigner?  That's tougher -- a set meal for three folks will run you 50 bucks in Daegu (certainly more in Seoul) and if raw crab isn't your jam, this might not be for you.  The texture is unique -- cold, slippery and not at all flakey like a properly cooked Maryland crab.

Still, when I consider what dishes I probably won't have access to in the U.S. outside of L.A.'s Koreatown or Flushing, Queens, this will be up there.  Weird, but tremendous flavor.  As a friend pointed out, you'll really appreciate having a nice bowl of rice here to balance out the saltiness.

Last Meals

 
Ginormous seafood platter, Daegu, South Korea.

Right now Korea is on partial lock-down, so restaurants can serve no more than four guests at a time.  Last Saturday night I met three former adult students for this avalanche of mostly raw seafood -- oysters, octopus, conch, abalone, sea snail, etc.

A lot of college gigs here don't require the teaching of adult night classes, but I wouldn't have traded this job for the world.  My best friends here usually came from attending my conversation classes.

Anyhow, I'm also feeling sufficiently fattened for slaughter since instead of one big farewell dinner, we're doing roughly three or four.

"and fuck Tom Brady"

I hope Patrick Mahomes does the decent Christian thing and beats the ever-loving shit out of Tom Brady.

— James (@wetcasements) January 25, 2021

Korea On Top

Daegu, South Korea.

"Games don't mean anything."

"It was cold, they argued over the temperature, John was from Minnesota and had slept as a boy with his window open.  So Frank shivered, a down coverlet draped over his shoulders, his feet blocks of ice.  They played chess and Frank won.  John laughed.  How stupid, he said.

What do you mean?

Games don't mean anything.

Are you sure?  Sometimes life seems like a kind of game to me.

John shook his head.  In games there are rules, but in life the rules keep changing.  You could put your bishop out there to mate the other guy's king, and he could leap down and whisper in your bishop's ear, and suddenly it's playing for him, and moving like a rook.  And you're fucked.

Frank nodded.  He had taught these things to John."

-- Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Mars

"All we need are the necessities and more"

 

X, "The New World" live 1985

Some thoughts:

1)  This was Trump's election to win.  All he had to do was half a have-decent response to COVID and start giving out 1,000 dollar checks last summer.  Couldn't be arsed, as Brits would say.

2)  Even the most extreme progressive deserves to give Biden a chance.  You can tell he wants to be there, and my hope is that Harris will also pull him to the left simply by her presence.  After four years of Cheeto Hitler, we deserve a little optimism at least.  A mostly-female cabinet alone makes for a good start.

3)  So much of the next four years will come down to the Senate.  Again, let's give ourselves at least a week of optimism before we see Joe Manchin cutting deals with Mitch McConnell.

4)  The inauguration was pretty good.  Biden's speech started kind of weak in my opinion, but finished strong.  To paraphrase Mitch Hedberg, that's a good place to end.

5)  I'm in a much better head-space, as you can imagine, moving back to a country with Joe Biden in charge rather than Trump.

It's Over. It Begins.

It feels good to breathe again.

Lots to do though. Let's make people hurt less.

— James (@wetcasements) January 21, 2021

Hey, I Saw A Good Movie

I can't recommend Sound of Metal enough.

It's uplifting, but still incredibly dark and never sentimental.

It's about music, love, losing love, addiction, and, surprisingly enough, language.

The performances are great, and the sound editing is other-wordly.

I also appreciate any movie that "gets" being in a band and the group dynamic of non-solo music creation.  I couldn't stand Whiplash for presenting jazz music as a struggle between isolated genius-egos only interested in besting one another.  It's a different context here (noise rock, equally improvisational as jazz), but making music with other people is a collaboration above all else, not a race or competition.

This comes shining through, for better or worse, here.

Gift of the Foreigner

I met my two oldest Korean friends last Saturday night for farewell pizza and beer.

One of them, one of my best friends in the world, predictably did the Korean thing and gave me a huge paper bag filled with two boxes of instant noodles and instant porridge (juk, for my elderly dad).

My plan remains to go home in two weeks with one big suitcase and one big-ish carry-on backpack.  Don't tell him I've got no room for foodstuffs.

Anyhow, if anything my re-gifting game has only grown stronger during my time in South Korea.  I'm thinking my office building's cleaning ladies are in for a minor treat.

Far From the Maddening Crowd, It Is Not

South Korea is a relatively small country filled with tons of beautiful mountains.  No wonder hiking is such a popular weekend activity here, but The Economist says there's something a bit sinister about it all:

"That could be a legacy of military rule. Park Chung-hee, the strongman who ruled South Korea in the 1960s and 1970s, encouraged conglomerates to push their employees out onto the trails as a community-building activity. He also insisted on military drills not unlike those still practised north of the border. Corporate culture has become a little more relaxed since then, although an ambitious executive may still find it expedient to scale the occasional mountain with the boss.

A culture of long working hours and short holidays encourages efficient hiking. Mountain paths tend to head directly for the summit, and rarely feature the switchback turns seen in other countries. South Korea has a whole infrastructure designed to get stressed leisure-seekers to, up and back down the mountains as speedily as possible. The plan on Ms Kim’s bus, which sounds distinctly ambitious to anyone used to a more leisurely pace, is for the hikers to tackle Seoraksan’s highest peak before it gets dark and return to Seoul well before the last subway train heads for the suburbs."

Hiking is a definite must-do activity here in South Korea but, indeed, coming from doing some fairly rigorous hiking in the area of Bellingham, Washington with my dad, it is pretty shocking to notice that Korean trails go straight-the-hell-up, no switchbacks to be found.  As for "getting away from it all," hiking here is very much a social (noisy?  crowded?) experience and not at all something Thoreau would have appreciated.

When People Tell You Who They Are, Believe Them

"Republicans can't win so they cheat" was pretty damn awful in the context of maintaining a healthy democracy but safe to say "Republicans can't win so they riot and commit treason" is much worse...

— Antifa #BLM James (@wetcasements) January 13, 2021

It Was An Inside Job

I've had a sinking suspicion that there was some form of collusion between the MAGA terrorists who stormed the capitol and law enforcement.  While that remains a definite possibility, it now turns out:

"But after laying out her many reasons for seeking Trump's removal, she [Rep. Mikie Sherrill] moved on to those of her congressional colleagues who, she said, 'abetted' his attempt to overturn the results of the election and undermine democracy through a violent mob.

'I'm going to see they are held accountable, and if necessary, ensure that they don't serve in Congress,' she said, speaking sedately, but severely.

Other countries execute people for much less than giving intel to hostile parties.

Good People On Both Sides

Not content to just disrupt the certification of Joe Biden, the white terrorists took the time to spread handfuls of their own shit on the floors of the Capitol:

"Offices were ransacked, glass was broken, litter was left throughout the building, and wooden furniture was destroyed. Some pro-Trump rioters smeared feces on the walls."

It's genuinely surprising more of these people weren't killed.  I wouldn't shed a single tear for any of them if that had been the case, of course.

"They're all in the station praying for trains / Congregation's late again"

Dire Straits, "Lions" live

It's time to admit that not only was Dire Straits an amazing band, but their three best albums all came before Brothers in Arms.

I spent the weekend using FaceBook (ugh) to give away and dispose of a bunch of electronic stuff in my apartment, both working and non-working.  I spent today (Monday) getting rid of office junk and I have to say compared to my co-worker, I think my desk is looking relatively clean and usable for whomever is next.

I'm still in a slight shock over the attempted coup of last week but then again, seeing videos on Twitter of these White Nationalist Terrorists being arrested at work or airports carries me a long way.

Convict and punish them all with healthy jail-terms.  Breaking and entering and destruction of Federal property ain't toilet paper on your neighbor's tree.

That's about it for now.  I'll be moving to Bellingham on February first.

Tear Gas Is Only For Black People

Source.

Growing up in the DC area you learn quickly that there are multiple layers of law enforcement -- cops -- in the region.  DC cops of course, but also Capitol Police, Park Police, Secret Service, etc.  I know for a fact that in the wake of 9/11 even neighboring counties mobilized their police departments and sent them into the city.

A lack of manpower was never the issue.

What happened on the steps of the Capitol yesterday was a total and complete abdication of duty.  It was the definition of structural racism.  They would never have shown such deference to a majority non-white protest.  They somehow "learned" non-violent policing protocols at the drop of a MAGA hat.  Whoever had duty at the Capitol building yesterday and coddled these terrorists needs to be fired immediately.

Update: "How Police Bungled The Capitol Riot"

Update: Did Federal police allow this to happen on purpose, in deference to Trump?

Sometimes The Good Guys Win, Twice

Ray Charles and Willie Nelson, "Georgia" live

I went into last November's presidential election as cautiously optimistic.  While the Congressional side of things wasn't great for us Dems, let's not forget that Joe Biden knocked off an incumbent president for the first time in nearly three decades.

So this afternoon in my office in lurvely Daegu, with few expectations, imagine my joy at seeing the Dems take de facto 50-50 control of the Senate.  (And let's be frank -- if a Jew and a Black Dude winning in formerly deep crimson Georgia and kicking Mitch McConnell to the curb doesn't put a smile on your face, you ain't got no soul.)

This is a golden opportunity for so much positive change being served up for Joe Biden.  He damn well better not sacrifice it on the altar of "moderation" or, Spaghetti Moster forbid, "bipartisanship."

Meanwhile, let's mentally prepare ourselves for Donald / Ivanka 2024.  (Kidding, but not kidding.)

"bodies had to be wrapped in sheets"

 The Guardian interviews a deep-south, small town funeral home director:

"The business has been in the Charlet family since their grandfather and his brother opened it in the 1940s. Charlet is one of three funeral directors at the Charlet family funeral home. He grew up 20 miles north of Zachary behind another funeral home that his family owns in Clinton, Louisiana, which was damaged in the historic floods of August 2016.

Because he was raised in a funeral home, Charlet knows how to prepare for the worst. He was taught at a young age to fill up the gas tank on the hearse before the local high school prom, in case there were deaths resulting from drunk-driving accidents.

But even Charlet wasn’t prepared for the Covid-19 pandemic. 'The first couple of months, it was really scary because there wasn’t a lot of guidance on what we were supposed to do,' he said. A short supply of body bags meant some bodies had to be wrapped in sheets."

Surprisingly compelling.  Also, true fact -- I was born in Zachary, Louisiana.  My mom was a graduate student at LSU at the time, and apparently the small county hospital here did Lamaze stuff that the larger university hospital wouldn't accommodate.

"You there, eating the paste!"

Daegu, South Korea.

Monorail!

It's maybe not the greatest picture I've ever snapped, but this photo taken on New Year's Day tells a nice little story about my soon-to-be-former town of northern Daegu.  First, you've got the stream which was neglected when I moved here ten years ago.  It's been widened and cleaned up a bit.  Next, you've got the monorail or, more properly, Daegu Metro Line Three.  Lines One and Two run on subway lines easterly-westerly, but new-ish Line Three filled the gap of running north-south.  Throw in the ducks and egrets (at least I think they're egrets), the walking and biking paths, and not far away some public exercise equipment, and you've got a perfectly pleasant little scene.

Nine times out of ten, the South Korean local governments do a really great job managing and improving public and green space.  It's definitely something I'll miss from here.  It can be done right in America of course, but it seems there's much less will to to do so.

"pan it, can't understand it, ban it"

 

MF Doom, "Money Folder"

Happy New Year from lurvely Daegu.  It's Monday afternoon, and I just turned in my final hard-copy grades and attendance sheets for my last semester here in South Korea.

While the Lunar New Year isn't until February 12th, it's safe to say we're moving from the Year of the Rat to the Year of the Ox.

As we've gone back to restaurant lock-down of no more than four people per table, I did pretty much nothing for New Year's (just like Christmas!).  I called my Dad and I think it's finally sinking in with him that we're going to be room-mates soon.

So back to bank and pension office visits.  The former is actually pretty much done, the latter will take a bit more extra paperwork.  (Have I mentioned Korea pretty much runs on paperwork?  Yes, millions of times.)

R.I.P. MF Doom.