"And I'm thinking about the way things are / And I'm thinking about the way things were"

Yo La Tengo's "Tom Courtenay" covered by Lucy Dacus

Yo La Tengo's Electr-o-Pura just turned 25.  Yikes.

In a pinch I'd take Painful over E-o-P but I have a lot of college memories wrapped around both these discs.  I remember absolutely loving this song but having no idea what it was about.  Best I could tell it was something to do with some obscure (to me) British actors.  Years later, Genius says I was pretty much right.

And what a lovely cover performance.

Project Herzog

Project Herzog continues apace.  Last night I saw what I considered to be that rarest of things in a Herzog film, a dud -- The Wild Blue Yonder (2005).  But even when's he's not at his very best, WH is still riveting.

Here he re-contextualizes film stock (aboard the Space Shuttle, under the Arctic ocean) to tell a fairly straightforward sci-fi story.  (Something he started doing in the amazing 1992 Lessons of Darkness, which is by no means a failure at all.)  But the technique just doesn't work here.

That said, like pizza, bad WH still delights.  Here, it's the stunning soundtrack.  He recorded music concurrently for this project along with music for The White Diamond (2004), which I'll get to soon.

Tree Of Liberty Watered By The Blood of Yadda Yadda

It's like the ruling classes of America and England _desperately want_ us working assholes to build as many guillotines as possible, ASAP.

— Your Little Ray of Sunshine James (@wetcasements) May 27, 2020

Summer

Since I moved to South Korea in 2008 (!) I've been travelling back to America every summer starting in 2010.  I have February and August off, so summer is a good time to get back in touch with my awesome sister near Baltimore and my FOX-addicted dad north of Seattle.

I contacted sis last night and told her I couldn't make it back this summer for the annual visit.

For starters, South Korea expects a 14 day quarantine for all people coming into (or back into) the country.

Then, two days ago, new requirements were announced, including the need for a coronavirus test 48 hours within the time you re-enter Korea.

It's my understanding that in America you can only get a test in most places if you're already symptomatic.  That would make it impossible to actually return to my job.

South Korea has done an exceptional job with this plague, so they get to make the rules.

The quarantine I could probably deal with (although it certainly wouldn't enhance my current level of mental health).

But needing a CV test that I might not even be able to get?  That's too much.

And that sucks.

I miss crabs.  And my nephew.  And the dogs.  Especially the hyperactive black one that seems to like me very much.

His name is Periwinkle.

U.S. Grant

I took a break from my Werner Herzog quarantine binge to check out the first episode (of three) of Grant (as in, Ulysses S. Grant).

It was excellent.  A genuine American hero who was willfully slimed by the racist twits of Confederate "Lost Cause" ideology.

"an incredible step in the right direction"

I am not an optimist by nature, but in a world clogged with so much shit and misery it seems to me that some things -- actually, many things -- are going to have to shift, transform, or simply disappear in global wake of Covid-19.

So here's your ray of sunshine for today -- California (and it's enormous public university system) is getting rid of the SAT (American college entrance exam).

This is very good news:

"Critics of the standardized tests have long argued they disadvantage students of color and those from low-income families because test questions often contain inherent bias that more privileged children are better equipped to answer. Wealthier students are also more likely to have access to expensive prep courses that help boost their scores, which many students can’t afford.

The UC’s governing body, the Board of Regents, voted 23-0 Thursday to approve a proposal by the UC president, Janet Napolitano, that phases the tests out over five years, at which point the UC aims to have developed its own test.

The regents met in a teleconference that lasted several hours Thursday, with expert presentations and lengthy debates that echoed a national conversation about whether the tests discriminate against disadvantaged students or help admissions offices find the most qualified applicants.

'I think this is an incredible step in the right direction,' said the Regents chairman, John Perez."

Yes, the SAT is racist.  Rich folks can send their kids to prep courses, and poor folks can't.  And those courses are primarily how to game the test -- more specifically, when should you guess and when should you leave an answer blank?  This alone can significantly increase your score, and it has nothing to do with an improved command of vocabulary or math.

Next, let's kill the GRE (graduate school entrance exam).  It's absurd to think an MA or PhD program can't judge your potential based off of a 20 page writing sample and two letters from your college professors.

New Quarantine Books!

Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven
Kim Stanley Robinson, The Gold Coast
                                      Pacific Edge
Joanna Russ, The Female Man

"it's a clean kill but it's not clean"

Coriky, "Clean Kill"

Ian played a baritone acoustic with The Evens.  Not sure what he's playing here.  It would be nice to hear his screaming Gibson SG again but hey, we can't have everything.

This is Ian MacKaye and his wife Amy Farina's new band, where Ian regroups with Fugazi bassist Joe Lally.  If I understand correctly, the full album release and tour have been delayed / denied due to the coronavirus.

I like it.  I mean, it's basically The Evens with more low end and The Evens deserved more attention than they got.

Why I Love Living In Korea

What a country:

"South Korean football team FC Seoul has apologized after fans accused the club of using sex dolls to fill empty stands at its second game of the K League season.

On Sunday, the club played at home against Gwangju in South Korea's top football championship, which was due to start on February 29 but was postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic."

Click through for pics.

To paraphrase an old South Park, "He's not the chicken fucker -- he's the chicken lover."

And that's all I got.

Me And Werner

One of my goals for this plague is to watch all of Werner Herzog's documentaries.  Like a lot of folks, I was entranced by his 2000's masterpieces -- Grizzly Man, Encounters at the End of the World, and Cave of Forgotten Dreams.  There's a lot of great, weird stuff from his earlier career though.

So far I loved La Soufriere, which in 30 minutes pretty much encapsulates his major themes -- the indifference of nature to man's suffering, the inevitability of death (probably a horrible one), and modernity's deluded attempt to stave off all these things.  But I'm also enjoying what I'd call the curveballs -- Little Dieter Needs To Fly is really hard to even describe, and the ending shot is truly subversive in the best sense of the word.  The Dark Glow of the Mountains is worth it just to see Reinhold Messner, perhaps the manliest of manly men ever, breaking down into tears remembering the death of a friend.  Ballad of the Little Solider, about child soldiers in Nicaragua, is just brutal in its unflinching, naturalistic approach to the sheer insanity of proxy wars.

So I'm no closer to running a marathon or writing my first novel, but I'm pretty content to see this though.

Good Times

The big kerfuffle in South Korea now is that, while on the edge of shutting down the spread of the coronavirus for good, over 100 new cases have emerged centered on the Seoul neighborhood of Itaewon.  Anybody familiar with the capital knows Itaewon is kind of a shitty, dingy strip of foreigner bars and western restaurants.  (Some good ones, I'll admit, but a ton of truly unfortunate clubs and bars too.)

So there's talk of a single super-spreader, foreigners going out of control on drugs and booze, and a few gay clubs where orgies were hosted.

Just your perfect mix of xeno- and homo-phobia, which are always lurking just under the surface of the South Korean national dialogue.