Foresight

From Kirby: King of Comics by Mark Evanier:

"Early on, it had been the subject of one of those Kirby precictions that few took seriously when he made it.  He said the con [San Diego Comic-Con, first held in 1970] would grow until it took over all of San Diego.  He said that the definition of 'comics' would expand beyond those things printed on cheap paper.  It would be about comic books as movies, comic books as television, comic books in forms yet to be invented.  He said -- and this is a quote -- 'It will be where all of Hollywood will come every year to find the movies they'll make next year and to sell the movies they found here the year before."

Kirby was a visionary, to say the least.  By 1970 he was slowing down as an artist but realized TV, and later film, would be where the money was.  He transitioned from comics to show producer and managed (with great effort) to get back some of his original artwork from Marvel and apparently lived pretty comfortably after a lifetime of economic anxiety, even though his creations had generated so much wealth for multiple comic companies (including, less famously, DC).

Stan Lee does not come off well here.  He was, at best, pretty much indifferent to the economic plight of the man who basically created the Marvel Universe.  At worse, he stole all of Kirby's best ideas.

Casting Stones

If Haiti and Africa are "shitholes," I wonder what that makes of rural Kentucky, West Virginia, and Ohio?  (And that's just for starters.)

Indeed, the United States has a life expectancy that's literally declining.  Opioids are ravaging, for lack of a better term, "white America" at rates that would make the worst inner city neighborhoods blush.  (With the added bonus of HIV making a serious comeback in these areas.)

But hey, just remember that Trump's rise and victory had nothing to do with race and the poison of white racial resentment.

Ugh

any white person writing about any city in Asia: "It's a city of contrasts, old and new, traditional and modern, at times hectic but also serene...."

— "Stable Genius" James (@wetcasements) January 11, 2018

I'm stoked for the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics next month (I'll be going for two or three days) but not so much for how Western media always covers Asia -- it's so fucking cliche by now.

As if New York or London aren't also massively contrasting and /or contradictory. That's how big cities work, always.

Age Is Just A (Complicated) Number

I've lived in South Korea for almost a decade now and I'll admit, I still don't understand how Korean age-accounting works (i.e., "East Asia Age Reckoning.")  Basically, Koreans count their Lunar New Year as a birthday and depending on your actual birthday, you can be either one or two years older than you would be in, say, America.  It's weird.  And it might be changing:

"While China, where the tradition originated, Japan and even North Korea officially did away with the traditional system in an effort to embrace the modern age system, South Korea stuck with it and essentially became the only Asian country where the old age calculating system is still practiced and culturally prevails even to date.

People from different cultures who first encounter the so-called Korean age often express interest in its novelty, prompting several YouTubers and K-pop-focused websites to give extensive coverage to the unique age system, under which one can experience an age gap of up to two years in some cases.

However, South Koreans, particularly younger generations, are experiencing difficulties switching back and forth between the western age system and Korean Age, and they have taken the issue to the internet where discussions are being had over the pros and cons of the traditional age system."

It's a rare occasion when North Korea is more "Western" regarding a cultural issue than South Korea is.

Also, I'm sure I'm not the only foreigner here who always uses his "Western" age.  Because, vanity.

#Oprah

Why not Oprah for president?  She's not my first choice but if she managed to win the Democratic nomination I'd vote, volunteer, and donate as much as possible in 2020.  She strikes me as smart enough to understand that she could surround herself with policy types and leave the hefty lifting of undoing the Trump Years up to them.

But to hear fellow Dems moan and wail about how we need "real" politicians instead of celebrities is laughable in a post-Trump world.

For better or worse (ed. note: much, much worse), politics in America now is post-policy and entirely based on personality.  And that genie isn't going back into the bottle ever again.  There is no second-place trophy for maintaining your pure political principles in the face of a GOP that is more than fine with supporting the Orange Pussy-grabber.

I wish -- dear god I wish -- some sort of book-readin', Harvard edumacated Obama 2.0 were in charge these days.  And I hope Elizabeth Warren (no slouch in the book-readin', edmucated department herself) runs.

But let's not fool ourselves -- in American politics for the foreseeable future personality trumps (ahem) all now, given our sick "both sides do it" media culture and a Republican Party that's been arguing that any Democratic president since Clinton has been somehow illegitimate, be it due to consensual blow-jobs or supposedly being born in Africa.

Adjust or die.  It's really that simple.

Great And Small

"The Garden," God's Gardeners Hymnal

I finished Margaret Atwood's The Year of the Flood over the weekend and started the third book in the trilogy, MaddAddam.  I stumbled upon these choral arrangements of the poems -- actually hymns -- from the book.

Not to spoil too much, but the most sympathetic group in the novels are God's Gardeners, a kooky but committed group of eco-purists fighting to survive in a dystopic hell where bio-engineering companies have basically taken over the world and ruined the environment.

In an interesting bit of intertextuality, the Gardener's charismatic leader, Adam One, who gives a sermon to begin every group of chapters, has had his words arranged to music.  Great poetry it ain't -- it borders on doggerel, but that's kind of the point.

In the context of the novel however, as the Gardeners fight to survive, it comes across as rather poignant.  Anyhow, it makes for interesting listening on a cold and rainy Daegu Monday.

Punk Pizza

Pizza Pals with Frankie Cosmos

A little ways back I read Slice Harvester, a memoir by Colin Atrophy Hagendorf and his mission to eat a single cheese slice at every pizza joint on the island of Manhattan.  It was good!  Now he has a video series of interviews with musicians where they sit down and -- wait for it -- eat pizza together.  It is also very good!

Life Update

between Trump and Republicans and Logan Paul I'm pretty much ready for a huge meteor impact / hostile alien invasion of earth

— James, Nazi-Puncher (@wetcasements) January 6, 2018

"Have You Ever Been?"

Nai Palm, "Electric Ladyland"

In addition to being great performance, I love the fact that she's playing a rock classic as a jazz standard on a metal-ass Jackson shred-master guitar.

My favorite type has always been against-type.

Hack Back

South Korea has had enough with North Korean cyber-attacks, so they've opened up a "Best of the Best" academy for so-called "White-Hat Hackers":

"With the North’s economy increasingly strangled by international sanctions, the country has almost no tax base and an expensive nuclear weapons program, meaning it has to seek alternative, often illegal, ways of generating income. North Korean hackers were linked to the theft of $81m from Bangladesh’s central bank in March 2016, and in December the US Trump administration identified North Korea as the culprit behind the WannaCry cyber-attack, which in May caused millions in losses. North Korea has denied involvement.

North Korean hackers have been linked to leaks of credit card information and illegal ATM withdrawals in South Korea. 'There are thousands of cyber-attacks in South Korea every day and most of them never get reported on the news,' Kim said. 'Information security is the basis of economic development.'”

For such a technologically advanced country, it does seem overdue for South Korea to finally take cyber-security more seriously.  They probably never expected a "backwards" North Korea to pull off the type of shenanigans that they've gotten up to lately.

Here's a free hint for starters: maybe don't make all your universities and banks and government agencies so heavily reliant on Internet Explorer?

These Trousers Are Rolled As Fuck

I did nothing for New Year's and it was glorious.

I mean, I did small things like laundry and a work-out and reading and watching a movie.

Getting older means being post-fun.  Post-fun is the best kind of fun.