Almost May, Brain Thinks It's Still February

It seems like my college is on track for a May 11th in-person start.

I have no idea how we'll handle the midterm.  I can't in good conscience test them on grammar stuff that I haven't been able to explain to them fully in person.

Honestly, everything feels like it's been in a weird time-stasis event since as early as February.

Nationally, lots of students (and parents) are calling for partial tuition refunds due to a perceived low-quality in distance learning materials so far.

Don't tell my boss, but I agree.  (Especially for language courses but then again English is an elective for my students, not a major, so I might dodge a bit of heat on this one.)

The "Korean way" would be for the students / parents to suck this up as a one-time deal and assume that with good governance and health-care it won't happen again.  Optimistically speaking I think that's the way to go, but who knows what happens come next fall / winter and the possible pre-vaccine "second wave."

Since I've finished all my video recording required so far (basically, half a semester's worth of material, along with quizzes and grammar supplements) I think tonight I'll enjoy some red wine and download Disco Elysium.

The spring weather here in Daegu is absolutely gorgeous as always, but then I get all sad-like wishing I could attend an actual Samsung Lions ball game or even an FC Daegu soccer match.

Buying a stationary bike is probably one of the smarter things I've done since moving to Korea, despite my boss thinking me a crazy person for exercising at home instead of at the school gym.  (Which raised its "faculty discount" prices recently, not to mention is currently shut down, so even better.)

So ends this highly detailed but fairly incoherent update.  Things could be better.  Things could also be a whole hell of a lot worse.

Also, Tiger King was actually kind of shit wasn't it?

Life Update

If you told 2019 me that 2020 me would tear up a little watching Miley Cyrus cover Pink Floyd I'd have called you nuts.

— 2020 Is Already Bullshit, James (@wetcasements) April 26, 2020

Now Some Good News

It's close to May and the Orioles are .500.

Fifth Time's The Charm

Word now is that my school will re-open, meatspace-wise, on May 11th.  Over Facebook and Twitter it sounds like Korean colleges and universities are all doing things their own way.  Some are shooting to open in May, others have already cancelled the entire semester.

In terms of "feel," I think there's a cautious confidence that if new cases flare up the structures are in place to contain as necessary.

We shall see.

Please Reset The Matrix For Me TIA

Just read an article re: Trump loses 2020 but runs again 2024 and where is my bottle of Jack Daniels anyhow?

— 2020 Is Already Bullshit, James (@wetcasements) April 21, 2020

Well, This (Might Have) Happened

Apparently Kim Jong-un had a botched heart surgery and is now in a coma.

2020, your script-writer deserves a raise as always.

"good enough for me"

John Mellencamp and friends, "Small Town" live

I wonder if the Pitchfork types will ever figure out than on a good day Mellencamp is just as bracing as Springsteen.

Last Friday night I was pretty damn bored so I finally gave Rise of Skywalker a shot.  (I actually kind of liked the first two movies, and I was fine with the "even Luke says the Force is bullshit" plot-line.)

Interestingly, the film was only in South Korean theaters for less than a week.  Now I understand why.

I made it to almost 30 minutes and gave up.  If it had been a major theater I would  have walked out in under half that time.

It's rare that a work of art can simultaneously make me feel infinitely superior on an intellectual level, but also stupid.  Like, giving me a migraine level stupid.

It was so many colors and shapes moving across the screen at high velocity, with only the barest association to characters or plot points or -- Yoda forbid -- actual human emotions.

It made me pine for the prequels.

I've said it before and I'll say it again -- J. J. Abrams has always been kind of shit.

Anyhow, I made it through with a great series -- Spectacle: Elvis Costello -- which none of my British Twitter homies had ever managed to tell me about.  (Free on YT now.)

Fuckers.

Simple Thought

On the one hand it's silly to anthropomorphize a virus.

On the other, it's clear that the Earth has had enough of our bullshit.

Thinking Out Loud

Word on Facebook (I know, I know, but it's a more reputable South Korea group than most) is that South Korea will cancel in-person college classes for this semester.

I'm supposed to have a lunch meeting with my boss this Monday.

Do I have a job next week?  (I'm a pessimist by nature.)

I'm actually surprised I haven't been asked to take a pay-cut yet.

FWIW, I'm fine savings-wise.  I just really don't want to go back to America right now.

Ruh Roh

I write a monthly dead-tree letter to my racist, non-internet-having father every month.  Stopped into friendly local post office this afternoon and was told no regular service to America, no express service to America, and literally, "no airplane."

As a strong believer in and supporter of well-run, efficient government institutions this is all strangely shocking.

More seriously, if you're not familiar with teaching jobs in South Korea, there is a ton of paperwork required -- transcripts (if not actual diplomas), criminal background checks, etc.

Plan accordingly.

"forcing governments to take their wellbeing seriously"

I have a lot to say -- entirely positive -- about living in South Korea during the ongoing coronavirus epidemic.  Sure, it was scary at first, and my sleep schedule is probably shot for the rest of 2020 at best.  But living here and seeing what an effective government response looks like, and what a fully-functional, first-world health care system should be, has been an eye-opener.  This piece by Tae Hoon Kim in The Guardian gets to the point:

"The restoration of democracy in 1987 did not change this state-led economic model and infrastructure management. What changed, however, was the attitude of the people. The toppling of the military dictatorship in 1987 was the result of a series of nationwide protests. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, South Korea saw numerous mass civil protests against a wide range of issues, from the import of US beef to government mismanagement of a ferry accident in 2014. The apex of this mass mobilisation were the demonstrations against the previous resident, Park Geun-hye. The protests continued from October 2016 to March 2017. On 3 December 2016, an estimated 2.3 million people took to the streets, almost 4% of the entire population. These subsequently led to Park’s impeachment and imprisonment.

Korean politics since the 1990s can thus be characterised as a period during which citizens became increasingly emboldened in their relationship with the state, forcing governments to take their wellbeing seriously. One area that this has been the most conspicuous is in public transportation, energy and healthcare. For the average person, these are everyday services that all citizens have the right to enjoy, and which are paid for by taxpayers’ money. To put it in more utilitarian terms, they are the most tangible barometers with which to judge the government’s commitment to its citizens. Failure to improve their qualities and manage them properly almost always leads to a loss of votes for the ruling party in upcoming elections."

Korean history is nothing if not complex.  But no doubt a country that has high expectations for its leaders, and is willing to hold them to account when they fuck up, is the defining characteristic of a healthy, functioning democracy.

The thing is, South Korea is hardly a den of Bernie supporters (or the rough Asian-Socialist equivalent).  I have friends (usually older, but still) who will routinely bitch about "Reds" in both the government and the dreaded, hated labor unions.  (A lot of his comes from right-wing indoctrination during two years of compulsory military service.)

But still, even the most right-wing Korean politician would get booed / laughed off the stage if they suggested privatizing the health care system or subways and buses.

Which is to say, the only thing preventing America from finally joining the rest of the industrialized world and putting a national health system in place is a lack of imagination.  An imagination of what's possible (as demonstrated by literally every other rich country in the world) and an imagination of who the government should serve -- the citizens, not the markets.

"because you want things so much"

"'So we never really give it up,' Bao agreed.  'What the Buddha was suggesting is impossible.  Desire is life trying to continue to be life.  All living things desire, bacteria feel desire.  Life is wanting.'

The young students thought it over.  There is an age, Bao thought, remembering, there is that time in your life, when you are young and everything seems possible, and you want it all; you are simply bursting with desire.  You make love all night because you want things so much.

He said, 'Another way of rescuing the concept of reincarnation is simply to think of the species as the organism.  The organism survives, and has a collective consciousness of itself -- that's history, or language, or the twisting ladder structuring our brains -- and it doesn't really matter what happens to any one cell of this body.  In fact their deaths are necessary for the body to stay healthy and go on, it's a matter of making room for new cells.  And if we think of it that way, then it might increase feelings of solidarity and obligation to others.  It makes it clearer that if there is part of the body that is suffering, and if at the same time another part commandeers the mouth and laughs and proclaims that everything is really fine, dancing a jig like the lost Christians as their flesh fell off -- then we understand more clearly that this creature-species or species-creature is insane, and cannot face its own sickness-unto-death.  Seen in that sense, more people might understand that the organism must try to keep itself healthy throughout its whole body."

-- Kim Stanley Robinson, The Years of Rice and Salt

I started this right around the beginning of the coronavirus epidemic.  Put simply, it's an alternative global history where the Black Death wipes out nine-tenths of Europe (and basically Christianity) instead of the reality of a meager one-third.  At the same time, it's a meditation on history itself told through the eyes of various characters struggling to understand and improve their surroundings.  Nine of the first ten sections end in the bardo after an inevitable catastrophe -- disease, war, murder, flooding.

I'm a Robinson stan through and through but if you're new to his stuff, this probably isn't the best place to start.  It's dense and long and not really interested in holding your hand through a cohesive narrative.  On the other hand, it's a pretty clear statement of purpose -- as a species, we either advance towards an equitable, global society that respects nature and women's rights or we all suffer and die in ignorance.

"We must love one another or die," on a world-historical level so to speak.

USA! USA!

My favorite #coronavirus moment so far:

The US Surgeon General showing us how to make masks from crusty old t-shirts and rubber bands.

How any American truly believes they live in a dominant, first-world country is beyond me.

— 2020 Is Already Bullshit, James (@wetcasements) April 9, 2020

"Dancing and cocaine"

Trailer for Whitmer Thomas, The Golden One

If you're short on quarantine viewing material, check out comedian Whitmer Thomas' one man show The Golden One.  I don't want to spoil anything, but it's a surprisingly thoughtful meditation on music, failure, death, and broken families.

I could relate to every minute of it.  And I laughed a lot (seriously!).

"if heartaches were commercials / we'd all be on T.V"

John Prine, "Come Back To Us Barbara Lewis Hare Krishna Beauregard"

Too friendly to be compared to Dylan, too rootsy-folksy to get compared to Springsteen.  Just an incredibly unique talent I guess, comparable to nobody.

R.I.P. John Prine.  I came to him later than most, but like many my first listen to "Spanish Pipe Dream" blew me away.

Predictable And Depressing

Brittany Wong on the double-damage of the coronavirus upon Asians and Asian-Americans in particular:

"Encounters like those experienced by Cruz’s parents have become commonplace for Asian Americans in the wake of the current global public health emergency.

Because COVID-19 originated in Wuhan, China, Asian Americans have been widely scapegoated, regardless of whether they’re Chinese or not. (Asian Americans ― Indonesians, Chinese, Koreans, Thai, Filipinos, and others ― aren’t a monolith, but for Americans with bigoted views, that hardly matters.)

Asian Americans of every descent are dealing not only with the virus itself, but verbal and physical violence from xenophobic neighbors. The choice to wear a mask or not is widely debated among friends and relatives ― do you wear one to protect yourself from the virus or does it draw unnecessary attention?"

This virus is killing so many, disrupting lives and families, and simultaneously traumatizing the fuck out of all of us.

When did "don't be a fucking asshole is a crisis situation" become such an impossibly high bar for so many white Americans?

This Is Literally What FOX News Viewers Think

I spoke with my Dad on the phone last night (Sunday morning his time).  I wished him well and was glad to hear he's only going into town once a week for food and supplies.  Then he let me know that, obviously, the coronavirus was created by China to hurt Trump and help Biden in the November election.

You'll be relieved to know that Nancy Pelosi was not involved in the virus' initial creation (Duh!  She's a politician, not a bio-weapon engineer!), but she did sign off on it in February via a secret meeting with Chinese Premier Xi.

LOL Apocalypse

1,000 years from now I think all our civilization will be remembered for is Tiger King.