Borderline Meh

So, #GameofThrones -- was a bag of Doritos and a pint of Ben and Jerry's.

Definite fat / sugar rush / high, but beyond the facade kind of a poorly written episode w/ unsatisfying ending.

— James of Thrones (@wetcasements) April 30, 2019

Buddha In Your Belly

Is Korean Temple Food, in all of its simple, vegetarian, locally sourced glory, going to be the next "wave" of Hallyu?  Maybe!  Here's an interview with a monk who teaches how to make the stuff:

Q:  "What do people, who are not monks, say is the most delicious dish?"

A:  "We say that we do things a certain way to make it tastier or even prettier. But frankly speaking, that’s contradicting Buddha’s teachings. The teachings say never to be greedy for anything, but looking for a good taste is desiring food.

So, talking about whether a particular food is tasty doesn’t make sense. However, that doesn’t mean that food doesn’t need to be made in a delicious way, as food should be something ordinary to help monks meditate and study. If a monk is distracted after having some bad food, that’s an inadequate way to cook food."

So, in a fascinating paradox, a truly Buddhist food experience can't, by definition, serve anything "delicious" that would inflame the desires of taste.

That's punk as fuck, if you ask me.

Avengers: Endgame Thoughts With Spoilers!

I think it's an excellent film, and probably the best installment of the MCU to date.  Some thoughts:

1)  Fat Drunk Thor.

2)  Ms. Marvel is hardly in it.  (There's even a very forced moment where she literally says "I'll be away for a while.")  And that's fine but she does nothing essential but for showing up at the end with literally hundreds of other heroes who could probably manage to do what she does.  And I liked Captain Marvel but is there any reason she's been created other than the boot up for the Kamala Khan version?

3)  Tony gets the hero's ending he deserves but wow, Captain America's wrap-up is truly superb, even calling into question whether the whole "Life of a Superhero" is worth it.  Tony is no doubt the center of the Avengers and he will be missed, but damn if Steve Rogers doesn't manage to remind us why it's nice to believe there are good guys and gals out there willing to fight for us.

4)  It didn't feel like it was three hours long, which is a Very Good Thing.

5)  I don't think anyone will be completely satisfied with choices as to who gets serious screen time.  I like Nebula in all her B-list glory, but here she's essential to the plot in ways that might disappoint those wondering why Spiderman, or Black Panther, or Doctor Strange, or Peter Quill don't get more love from the camera.

6)  Jeremy Renner is serviceable, at best, as always.  (Yes, I am officially a Hawkeye Hater.)  I think it's a minor slip to show him willing to commit suicide for being such a bad, terrible man.  But, as a bad, terrible man he's killing Mexican drug dealers and Japanese mobsters.  I didn't buy it.

7)  It's impossible not to speculate as to the next generation of Avengers.  Tony's daughter?  Check.  Hawkeye's daughter?  Most definitely.  After that, it gets a bit iffy.  Maybe the final Guardians of the Galaxy will bring someone to the table?

8)  Speaking of which, the lack of a credits sequence seemed fitting but -- the show is over for the heart and soul of the team.  But that was definitely the sound of a hammer hitting an anvil a few times at the end, no?

9)  A (Fat Drunk) Thor and Rocket buddy film?  Make it happen!

Gratuitous Korean Hip-Hop Track Just Because

Garion ft. Nuck, "영순위"

Being fairly productive in my grading and believe me, that's just as shocking to me as it may be to you.

Also, I've always liked to think of myself as Samwell Tarly in the streets, and Arya Stark in the sheets.

Just Thinking Out Loud

very strong #GameofThrones episode 2 but damn, you'd think the incest thing would bother Daenarys just a bit more than having a challenge to her queenhood...

— James of Thrones (@wetcasements) April 22, 2019

Delightin' and Instructin'

It's the eighth week of the semester already (!), which means mid-terms.  So I don't have college classes this week, but I just finished looking over a huge stack of projects.  (Specifically, one page introduction letters from each student.)

Tomorrow I can pick up their tests and begin digging into those.

I've always hated grading but at least I'm at the point where I know I just have to sit down with the tests / papers / projects and start going through them as quickly as possible.

And oh hey, I'll reward myself if I can finish all the grading this week with Avengers on Thursday (opening early here in Korea) and maybe another ballgame that evening.

Free Solo

Free Solo trailer

I finally saw Free Solo this past weekend and absolutely loved it.  It has to be one of the three greatest documentaries I've ever seen.

So much so that for today's adult advanced class we watched the trailer, an interview, and read an article about Honnold's achievement.

If the film only focused on the preparation and climb itself it would be impressive enough.  But the fact is that the real film happens when Alex's friends and girlfriend confess to how fucking worried they are about him.

Astounding.

The Best Time of Year

I made it to my first Samsung ballgame of the new season last Saturday.  Alas, we lost to the dastardly kt Whiz of Suwon on a grand slam.  Still, the weather was perfect and this is one of the best things about Daegu in spring and summer.

I'm more of a beer-drinking contest guy myself, but Kiss Time is also fun.

Them's The Breaks

Trump is a crook and literally a Russian asset.

But impeachment would be, tactically, a waste of resources as long as there aren't 66 Dem senators.

(Hint: There will never be 66 Dem senators.)

— James. Just James. (@wetcasements) April 19, 2019

Scratch a Republican, a Coward Bleeds

There's not a lot to smile about these days, but this story about Kentucky Republicans being afraid of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez visiting their state is good:

"So now Barr is demanding that Ocasio-Cortez apologize to Crenshaw if she wants to accept his invitation, writing in a letter to her office that her comments 'demonstrate a lack of civility that is becoming far too common in the U.S. House of Representatives.' An apology's not likely to happen, though. Corbin Trent, a spokesman for Ocasio-Cortez, told The Courier-Journal, 'Luckily, we still have open borders with Kentucky. We don’t need Congressman Barr to meet with coal miners and have a town hall, though we’d love his participation if we do.'

Uninviting Ocasio-Cortez is probably a smart move on Barr's part in the long run. For one thing, there aren't any active coal mines in Barr's district. And James Comer, another Republican representative from Kentucky, told local news that he didn't 'see any upside' to having her come to Kentucky. 'I think a lot of Republicans are making a mistake picking on her. I think we need to be very prepared when we debate her on issues that we're having a hard time with.'"

Obviously when she has the time she should visit on her own.  And knowing her and her guts (something in woefully low supply among members of my political party) she will.

Who Gets To Be "Lucky"?

What's in a name?  For a few newly opened Chinese restaurants run by non-Chinese chefs, a fair amount of drama, if not outright problematic thinking:

"However, by the mid-20th century, changing conditions in both countries saw a shift. When Mao Zedong and his People’s Republic of China party took power in 1949, the country was declared an atheist state; as part of the Cultural Revolution he led, social values were upended, ancient religions were banned, and traditional Chinese pictographic characters were simplified to fewer strokes. Meanwhile, in the U.S., Jung writes that 'as non-Chinese customers became better acquainted with Chinese names and more tolerant toward Chinese culture, it became fashionable after 1950 to return to Chinese names.'

That leaves the 'lucky' name with a smack of old-timeyness, but there are still plenty of them — American-Chinese restaurants often don’t change names when a new owner takes over, for consistency’s sake. In other cases, restaurant owners might lean in on the 'lucky' name to intentionally create a sense of nostalgia; many of the new restaurants from non-Chinese owners employ it alongside a cheeky, retro feel to their decor and branding. Think old-fashioned poster art or cigarette labels with women in Mandarin dresses, old Chinese newspapers, or Tiki bar aesthetics. Nostalgia is a big ticket in U.S. restaurants today: It’s the secret sauce in everything from dishes to decor to cocktails at such esteemed restaurants as the Grill and Rocco Dispirito’s new Standard Grill, both in New York."

I've always like Andrew Zimmern on T.V., so I was bummed that he was such a dick-head regarding his new (and apparently not very good) Asian restaurant.

Deep Game of Thrones Thoughts

Granted that "fucking our brains out continuously" is always an attractive option, still seems like Daenarys and John should have started blowing the fuck out of those damn zombies with dragon fire ASAP.

— James. Just James. (@wetcasements) April 16, 2019

Offal Politics

It's 2019 and the debate over American soul food, and more generally the consumption of offal, continues:

"Chitterlings (also known as chitlins) are both a peasant food and a delicacy the world over, like menudo in Mexico and andouillette in France. But regardless of whether you have eaten, will eat, or patently refuse to eat the small intestines of a pig, the dish is heavily associated with African-American culture, thanks in large part to the legacy of slavery: Pig intestines were given to African slaves after their masters had eaten 'high on the hog,' a phrase that came directly from the idea that the “higher” part of the pig’s body you were eating from, the better off you were economically.

'They didn’t want all that stuff—the intestines, the cow stomach, [so they gave it to us],' recalls Maudessa Rich-Harris, my boyfriend’s mother. For her part, she grew up loving chitlins, even if she hated the arduous (and admittedly stinky) process of cleaning refuse out of them.

'The conversation was around the smell,' says Kimberly Barnes, host of the black vegan podcast Do Fries Come With That Convo? She says chitlins were such a constant on her family’s holiday table that she doesn’t remember ever having any sort of conversation about them, except when it came to their distinctive odor.

'It smells like a butt,' she says."

There's a lot going on here so I'll just add two thoughts --

1) Processing any animal into food tends to be stinky and unpleasant and gross.  In committing to process the entire animal ("nose to tail" as the kids say these days) rather than just cutting off the easy, readily tasty bits you're going a long way to keep all  meat consumption a viable thing, which is by no means a guarantee now.

2) I'm lucky to live in a country that's never "struggled" with nose to tail, it's just always been a way of life.  Blood sausage?  Blood soup?  Grilled intestines?  Chicken feet?  Delicious (if not always heart-healthy) stuff all around.  So maybe it's a bit liberating here, where eating the gnarly bits was never imposed by slave hierarchies.  (Interestingly, grilled intestines were considered a delicacy by one of the greatest Korean kings himself.)

And here's the kicker from the article:

"'Either we embrace soul food or we don’t,' says Jametta Raspberry, the founder of the Minneapolis-based culinary collective House of Gristle. 'You can’t pick and choose.'

And, she continues, 'maybe you should go ask a white person how they feel about their ancestors giving these parts to us, while they kept all of the other parts to themselves? No one will want to answer that.'

'We have nothing to be ashamed of,' Barnes says. 'We took something that was bad and turned it into something that is a delicacy.'”

There is absolutely no shame in celebrating food cultures that grew out of necessity, if not desperation, and managed to do it so successfully.

"it is barren"

Is it awfully hypocritical of me to think that, despite championing freedom of the press and the exposure of U.S. war crimes early on, Julian Assange basically morphed into a pro-Trump, pro-Putin, anti-feminist, probable rapist who deserves to do hard time, if not die in jail?

I can live with that.

Git Gud? More Like Git Old

I find the "can we have eazy mode please?" debate kind of fascinating.  I played the hell out of Dark Souls and Bloodborne, but less so DS 2 and 3.  When Sekiro came out I pretty much decided to wait-and-see via Twitch and, frankly, it doesn't strike me as all that great.  The combat looks really repetitive with the parry mechanic, even more than any of the Souls games.  I also find "feudal Japan with ninjas" to be about as dishwater as possible for a setting.

Having said all that, I'm also getting old.  I don't even have a kid and I find it hard to make time for video games between work, books, and exercise.  So I guess my answer is, "Game developers should make exactly the game they want and who the hell has time to play every game they're a bit interested in anyhow?"  There's a ton of content out there that looks worthwhile but I know I'll never even scratch the surface of the stuff that I might enjoy.

For what it's worth, I'm currently making my way through the Yakuza 2 remake and nibbling a bit at the new MLB The Show, which is incredibly overrated but fun enough and perfectly designed to pick up for an hour and then put down.

And between Twitch and Youtube, it's silly to argue that anyone is "locked out" of the experience of these more difficult games.

Samsung Fighting!

One more college class to go, then I'm off for my first Samsung ballgame of the new season.

I meant to go last week but came down with a little cold, and the weather was on the cool side.

It's still a bit chilly for April in Daegu, but I can no longer wait.

The team is still "rebuilding" though, so any thought of making the post-season would just be silly.

Bringing along Playing at the World, making slow but steady progress.  Sucker is huge with teeny-tiny print.  Fun nerd history fact: Gary Gygax was shit-canned from an insurance job and decided to "semi-professionally" try and publish some of his war gaming material including Chainmail, which included the first fantasy rules that would later molt into Dungeons and Dragons.

Being An Ally

Kind of out of nowhere, here's a great think-piece by a white ballplayer for the Utah Jazz on how he discovered his own privilege:

"There’s an elephant in the room that I’ve been thinking about a lot over these last few weeks. It’s the fact that, demographically, if we’re being honest: I have more in common with the fans in the crowd at your average NBA game than I have with the players on the court.

And after the events in Salt Lake City last month, and as we’ve been discussing them since, I’ve really started to recognize the role those demographics play in my privilege. It’s like — I may be Thabo’s friend, or Ekpe’s teammate, or Russ’s colleague; I may work with those guys. And I absolutely 100% stand with them.

But I look like the other guy.

And whether I like it or not? I’m beginning to understand how that means something."

Let's face it -- nine times out of ten in 2019, rooting for any professional sports team means supporting an owner / ownership group that is filled with unrepentant, overly wealthy, and racist assholes.  So a piece like this goes a long way to make me more optimistic that things are changing for the better, and that being an ally doesn't take any huge moral leaps -- it just requires you to shut up and think about the experiences of others, and to re-align yourself accordingly.

Doolittle

Having a tough time of it?  Don't "correct" yer accent, soften it:

"A broad regional accent might hold you in good stead in some jobs, but can be a drawback in more upwardly mobile careers. 'There may be some kind of expectation that, if you’ve secured a good degree and aced teacher training, then why didn’t you modify your accent as a linguistic means to signal that you are moving up in the world,' says Dr Alex Baratta, a lecturer at the Manchester Institute of Education.

'Accents tell you as much about what we project on to people as anything to do with the actual people,' says Sophie Scott, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at University College London. How you perceive accents can be dependent on your proximity to the location of the accent, she says. She grew up in Blackburn, Lancashire, where the Liverpudlian accent was considered 'metropolitan'. This contrasts with the animus that some Mancunians have towards a scouse accent, and the romanticism some Americans hear in its cadences.

Since I have been in London, I have become conscious of what my accent signals – northerners are often depicted as being louts or simpletons in the southern-centric media. During the first few ice-breakers at university, I was told by a well-spoken southerner that I sounded like Karl Pilkington, of An Idiot Abroad fame.

My adult students explained to me that a Daegu accent doesn't map as "stupid" or "poor" so much as "antagonistic" towards Seoul folks.

Make of that what you will.

An Aussie In Pyongyang

The title says it all -- "I'm the only Australian living in North Korea. Let me tell you about it" :

"The Pyongyang Metro is always full of 'phone zombies' staring intently at games, movies or the news. Pretty much the only person I’ve met who doesn’t have a smartphone is my 73-year-old literary theory teacher, who has stuck with her 2000s Nokia-style device.

But perhaps the most insightful experiences I’ve had have been talking with various locals.

A taxi driver, for example, told me he knew Australia was a popular tourist destination. He knew we had backed the 'US imperialists' in the Korean war, which his grandfather had fought in, but said he hoped I would be the first of many foreigners to live in his home town.

In the dormitory, I shared a room for four months with a local student majoring in English. In most ways, he wasn’t too different from a typical bloke in his early 20s. An avid football fan, he loved Neymar and Messi, whom he followed alongside the April 25 Sports Club, a local Pyongyang team. He enjoyed the odd drink (and a more regular cigarette)."

Of course, a smart US foreign policy would be working to understand these internal changes and adjust accordingly.

Of course, there is no such thing as a smart US foreign policy these days.

And So It Goes.

Here's serendipity for ya' -- 50 international covers for the 50th anniversary of Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five.

(This is a Georgian version fwiw.)

April Fool's Day Update

1)  I usually dread spring here in lurvely Daegu, because it means in a few weeks we'll hit the unbearable summer heat and humidity.  In fact, it's freezing here today.  I'm in the college library sitting next to a space heater because it's so frigid.

2)  I guess I get to claim Virginia in the Final Four since I went to a lowly Division III school for actual college and UVA for graduate school.  As usual with American sports though, as much as I try to follow them it's just not the same watching Youtube clips the day after.  That said, UVA's win over Purdue was pretty insane.

3)  I think my last word on Us is this -- I don't buy that it's a straight-up parable about class.  I think that's part of it, but I'm much more convinced it's a statement on duality, light versus dark, psychological splitting, what Freud called "das unheimliche."  It there's any "political" reading of the film that makes sense to me, it's pretty simply -- America's Trumpian id has violently overthrown everything and there's no going back.  (Spoiler: In the final scene, why are those attack helicopters holding back instead of blowing the shit out of thousands of mass-murders?)

4)  I'm making slow but steady progress through Playing At The World.  If Stan Lee capitalized on (stole?) the work of Jack Kirby, then arguably Gary Gygax capitalized on (stole?) the zany, open-ended Blackmoor campaign of Dave Arneson and tamed it into the rule set that became the original Dungeons and Dragons.  (Arneson sued Gygax in 1979, five years after D&D was originally published.)

5)  An older adult student is insisting we have cow-blood soup for lunch next week.  (This dish is too gnarly for most of the other adult students in the class.)

How can I say no?