True Detective Season Three, With Minor Spoilers!

So far I'm thinking True Detective season three is pretty good.  The performances are strong.  Speaking as an 80s kid, there was something viscerally relatable about a boy's bedroom with Playboy mags and a Dungeons and Dragons module (a fake one!).  The triple-framing of 80, 90, and 2015 has worked so far (but could become really confusing if not handled correctly).

Relative to season one though, it does feel like it's playing it a bit safe.  There's plenty of room to go in the strange directions of season one, and I hope it does so sooner rather than later.

Toxic Masculinity Is A Thing

The amount of denial it takes for any grown-ass man to say toxic masculinity doesn't exist is pretty incredible.

— Baby New James (@wetcasements) January 15, 2019

The Favourite Is Really Good

I saw The Favourite this past weekend and it was incredible.  It's definitely Lanthimos' most "straight" film, and it really feels like he knew he had three incredible actresses here and he was willing to step back from his usual weirdness and just let them do their thing.

I'm wondering in what direction he goes from here.  This will definitely put him into the big time, and I'm sure tamer, more mainstream, and bigger budget opportunities will come knocking for him.

It'd be a shame if he ever let up on his unique vision and deprived us of the absurd brilliance of The Lobster or the genuine familial darkness of Sacred Deer, but who knows where he goes from here.

Deep, Insightful NFL Playoff Thoughts

There are three interesting teams left in the NFL playoffs and then there are the Patriots, who are peaking at just the right time.

Fuck the Patriots.

The Perfect Is (Still) The Enemy Of The Good

Eva Wiseman thoughtfully deconstructs the cult of New Year's Resolutions and the greater Self-Help Industry:

"Is there a compromise? We could cut down on meat, drink mindfully, jog around the park, but with no ambitions of perfecting ourselves. That might be nice? What about if this year we seek approval, not from the internet, but instead only from those we love? What if this year, we forget about trying to live longer, and instead enjoy the moments of glee in our existing day-to-days? What if, instead of cutting all alcohol from our lives for a month, we instead interrogate the things that make us want to drink too much? What if, instead of looking inwards, we stare cleanly out across this cold landscape of gentrified possibility, making sure the annual efforts to fix ourselves don’t distract us from fixing the world? What if the change we make is the realisation… we might not be the problem?"

Amen, sister.

"keep that volume high"

XXX, "Yves"

When Trump took office I mentioned that he had come to punish, not to govern.

It sucks being right sometimes.

Anyhow, here's some excellent Korean hip-hop from XXX.

Snooze Patrol

South Korea and Japan are notorious for employers demanding insane work hours from all employees.  While South Korea has officially ("officially" mind you, with intentional scare quotes) limited the work week to 52 hours Japan is trying something different -- nap time:

"Last year, Nextbeat, an IT service provider, went as far as setting up two 'strategic sleeping rooms' – one for men, the other for women – at its headquarters in Tokyo. The aroma-infused rooms feature devices that block out background noise, allowing workers to stretch out on sofas for an undisturbed kip. Mobile phones, tablets and laptops are banned.

'Napping can do as much to improve someone’s efficiency as a balanced diet and exercise,' Emiko Sumikawa, a member of the Nextbeat board, told Kyodo news agency.

Nextbeat also asks employees leave work by 9pm and to refrain from doing excessive overtime, which has been blamed on a rising incidence of karoshi, or death from overwork."

Naps are second only to daytime drinking and good tacos in terms of awesomeness, so let's keep this up.

2019 Starting Off The Right Way

I mean, is there anything other to say than that Trump and the Republican Party (one and the same) are holding the country hostage over a stupid wall that nobody actually wants?

Feminism And Food In South Korea

South Korean men love to talk about how certain Korean foods and alcohols give "stamina" to all the dudes.  And by "stamina," of course they mean great big boners:

"'It is popular to talk about stamina foods,' said Jung Seo-young, a chef and founder of Bburi Kitchen, a traditional Korean cooking school. '[Korean] society is very conservative, and talking about one’s sex life is taboo,' so talking about 'stamin' is a subtle way to broach the subject.

Besides associations with traditional concepts of healing, male-oriented foods are often touted for their anthropomorphic qualities, said Jung.'For example, an octopus’s [phallus-shaped] tentacles moves vigorously. In [texts] from the Chosun dynasty [1392–1910], they advised people to eat it for stamina.'

Jenna Park, a 26-year-old recent graduate in Seoul, said that her ex-boyfriend would tell her not to eat all of the eel when they went out for dinner together. 'He said the tails, which are said to be the most powerful part of the eel, were better to be eaten by men like him.'

Female sexuality, however, remains a major taboo, and foods in Korea that are catered to women usually focus on beauty or motherhood."

In English, there's no good word for "male slut" because sexually adventurous men are considered virile, handsome, and capable.

You can see the transposition here to Korean food -- there are no female stamina foods, because sexual ability isn't something women are supposed to enjoy, let alone compare and revel in with their female friends.

And it is shocking to live in a country that is known for being so sexually conservative (repressed?) but routinely walking into a noodle restaurant decorated with thick wooden cocks (no accident -- the glans have all been lovingly polished) or, as mentioned and pictured, being invited to end a rigorous hike with a few shots of Erection Wine.

Hell, I don't even react to the double-barber pole handjob parlors any more.

Cultural coding is for real.

Anyhow, it seems like I've been bringing in some pretty mine-laden topics to my adult classes recently, but they've responded well and more openly than I expected.  And there are still plenty of "neutral" topics I bring in for them, but I think for a long time I've underestimated their willingness to talk about their personal experiences as Koreans.

Making The Wave Inclusive

As the Korean cosmetics industry, a branch of the larger "Hallyu" or South Korean cultural wave, begins to make inroads into the US and Europe there are concerns that darker skinned folk are being left out, intentionally or otherwise:

"Though, one subject that troubles her is the lack of K-beauty options for darker skin.

'As western consumers begin to hold domestic brands accountable for completely excluding darker-skinned people from their consumer base, I noticed that Korean brands were entering into the international market and not expanding their ranges to fit the new market,' she told the Korea JoongAng Daily. 

'As a darker-skinned K-beauty enthusiast, I find the most frustrating part of participating in the international K-beauty phenomenon is the idea that I do not have the right as a prospective consumer to request shades that will match people who look like me, even though the products are being sold in my backyard. There are Korean brands being sold in major U.S. supermarkets and cosmetic stores, in areas with highly diverse populations, and people with dark skin are completely excluded from enjoying that expansion. Dark skin is not exclusive to a particular race. You can be any race or ethnicity and have dark skin. It’s just interesting to see how dark skin is constantly seen as an unreliable consumer base when that is not at all the case.'”

Knowing as little as I do about fashion and beauty in general, I was content to just listen to my adult students talk about their experiences traveling abroad and what they thought of the issues involved.  It is, however, undeniably a huge business (especially in China and to a lesser extent Japan) and there's something non-Koreans seem to find especially attractive about South Korean women, or at least the products they use.

"walk that walk alone"

"I see life differently now.  I can't ever go back to the well side, I've crossed over.  And I'm glad.  Now I have patience and compassion and I'm not scared of ill or dying people.  People who haven't been to the other side, or aren't close to someone who has -- they seem a bit half-baked to me, lifeless.

At the end of the radio- and chemotherapy, I have one last treatment to go through.  Brachytherapy.  This involves the doctors shoving a stick of radioactive material inside my vagina (it looks like that glowing green bar that Homer Simpson gets caught in his shirt in the title sequence of The Simpsons), then they all scoot out of the room and lock the nuclear-attack-proof door behind them, peering through a triple-glazed window at me as I lie on a trolley, legs in the air, green thing up my whatsit.  I spend most of the week after this treatment on the polished wooden floor of our bathroom, writhing in agony and vomiting bright green liquid as blood pours of of my arse, which feels like it has been slashed with a razor.

I write a long letter to Baby in case I don't make it.  I've read that's a good thing to do.  I'm so angry with myself; what kind of a mother are you, to bring a child into the world and then immediately go and die on her?  I vacillate between damning myself for dying and thinking I'm a burden to Hubby and Baby and should top myself.  Do them both a favour.

Night-time is the worst though.  Death waiting patiently just outside the half-open bedroom door.  I know he's out there, and he knows I'm in here.  Even if I beat him and get through another night, he's not bothered, he knows his time will come.  'I'm scared,' I whisper to Hubby.  'I know,' he says.  What else can he say?

When you're facing death, you have to walk that walk alone."

-- Viv Albertine, Clothes, Clothes, Clothes, Music, Music, Music, Boys, Boys, Boys