RIP Rutger Hauer

sure, sure, we all remember "attack ships off the shoulder of Orion" but the _real_ clincher is how he delivers "you people" (an android addressing a "real" human" that makes the scene iconic)

— Winterfell Barista James (@wetcasements) July 25, 2019

Gratuitous Summer Update Post Featuring Awesome Classic Korean Hip-Hop

CB Mass, "CB Mass Is My Friend"

I'd argue this is peak old-school Korean hip-hop.  And as Jay-Z taught us, using a children's choir as your hook will always make for a great banger.

This is my last week of adult classes, and my last week in Korea before summer vacation fully starts up.  Next Tuesday I'll fly to Seattle and visit my Dad for a few days, then fly to Baltimore to visit my sister for a little less than two weeks.  I'm looking forward to seeing my family of course, but visiting my Dad is a bit of a chore -- he lives in the middle of nowhere (about 90 minutes north of Seattle, in fact) and he doesn't have internet.  And while I'm fine with knocking out a few actual dead-tree books while I visit him every summer, his Luddite ways have gone from charming to annoying over the past few years.  The fact that he has FOX News on full-blast for the entirety of my visits means I basically sit on the front porch and read.  Not the worst thing ever, but not exactly ideal for father-son bonding either.

Baltimore will be a lot more fun, if only because my awesome sister and nephew actually look forward to my visits, and they actually plan fun stuff like trying new brew-pubs or restaurants, watching my nephew ride horses competitively, and probably an Orioles game.  (Hey, they're still my US-based team no matter how awful they are and always have been since 1983).

So all is well.  It's hot and humid as hell here in lurvely Daegu, and if you aren't running an AC at full blast everything in your office or apartment gets a slightly damp, clammy feel that's perfectly disgusting.

Also, as per usual, I'm getting about three or four free lunches and dinners this week with my adult students.  I'm all for great-big greasy Korean barbecue extravaganzas but, as mentioned, it's damn hot so we're going down more of the cold-soup and vegetarian bibimbab road.

Anyhow, blogging will be light to non-existent until mid-August when I come back.  Have a great summer!

Life's Rich Pageant

Source.

"One of the things that does disturb me is that some documentary photography is now being presented as art.  Although I am hugely honoured to have been one of the first photographers to have their work bought and exhibited by the Tate gallery, I feel ambiguous about my photographs being treated as art.  I really can't talk of the people in my war photographs as the subjects of art.  They are real.  They are not arranging themselves for the purposes of display.  They are people whose suffering I have inhaled and that I've felt bound to record.  But it's the record of the witness that is important, not the artistic impression.  I have been greatly influenced by art, that is true, but I don't see this kind of photography itself as being art."

-- Don McCullin, Unreasonable Behavior

I really enjoyed this book, a surprisingly unsentimental journey through pretty much some of the worst places, events, and outright slaughters of the 20th century, even into Syria in 2006.  My only complaint is that the selection of photos, while stunning, is smaller than it should have been.

"no defense of the volk is a betrayal"

Adam Serwer has been indispensable of late:

"The argument that Omar’s criticisms of her adopted country for failing to live up to its stated ideals justify revoking her citizenship substantiates the very criticism she lodged. Trump has said, “If you hate our country, or if you are not happy here, you can leave!” but his entire 2016 campaign was premised on the idea that many Americans not only are deeply unhappy, but also have every right to demand that things be better. That Trump’s supporters believe Omar’s sins justify her banishment, and Trump’s similar transgressions justify his presence in the White House, helps illustrate exactly what is going on here. Under Trumpism, no defense of the volk is a betrayal, even if it undermines the republic, and no attack on the volk’s hegemony can be legitimate, even if it is a defense of democracy.

Faced with the president’s baldly expressed bigotry toward four women of color in Congress, Republicans turned to reporters to argue that his attacks are part of a clever political strategy, elevating four left-wing women of color into the faces of his opposition. I suspect these Republicans, and some political reporters, believe that this somehow exonerates Trump from the charge of bigotry, as though prejudice ceases to be prejudice if it becomes instrumental. In fact, the admission that fomenting racism and division is central to Trump’s strategy is a stunning rebuke to those political reporters and pundits who, for four years, have insisted that the rise of Trump is about anything else. Trump and his most ardent liberal critics are in full agreement about the nature of his appeal, even as they differ on its morality. Only the Trumpists, and those who wish to earn their respect, fail to see it."

The willful denial of Republican racism over the past few years by the American media has been as mystifying as it has been dangerous.

So Much Economic Anxiety At The Klan Rallies...

The only thing more ridiculous than Trump and his Republican Party's obvious racism is the media's inability to fucking call out Trump and obvious Republican racism.

Dungeons And Dragons And Prisons

Dungeons and Dragons is, surprisingly to me, very popular within U.S. prisons (but banned in Idaho, because fuck Idaho).  However, dice are almost always banned as gambling utensils.  So what's a con wanting to get his elf on to do?  Improvise!  To wit:

"During his time behind bars, Gabriel made dice using one of the most common resources of all: toilet paper. 'You don't even need glue, just toilet paper,' he says, 'The way I did it is just by folding it into very thick square, wetting it, and then shoving it into a square corner, say a window sill. You do this over and over again, applying water when it starts to dry out, alternating corners. Eventually you have nicely shaped square. You have to continue shaping it as it dries with your makeshift corner jig. It shrinks a bit and gets quite hard.'

Where May was housed, 'No one ever got in trouble (that I know of) just for making them. If someone pissed off a C.O [corrections officer]. they could theoretically get written up for making dice (gambling paraphernalia) but mostly the cops didn't actively harass us in closed custody. If a person lost their dice it would more likely be during a one of the big shakedowns, where the cops go cell to cell and throw almost everything out on the tier. As in the real world, folks in prison hoard random stuff. They'd go through and throw it all away once a month, once every few months, or whenever someone OD'd on meth or something. When I got to medium and then minimum custody they really stopped throwing dice away, and in fact those kind of tier wide cell tosses were much rarer.'"

Other means of randomization include playing cards, spinners, and perhaps most simply a cup filled with numbered chits.

This is all interesting to me as I slowly make my way through Jon Peterson's Playing At The World.  While six-sided dice quickly became a modern board game convention, early war-gamers grew frustrated with having to rely on limited variations of 1/6 (roughly 16%).  In fact, the first incarnation of Dungeons and Dragons solely used variations of one or two six-sided dice.  Eventually, savvy war-gamers in the 1970s became aware of an obscure Japanese mathematics company that would, for a princely sum of two or three bucks, send you some amazing creations -- both the 10 and 20 sided dice.

"bloodstained velvet, dirty lace / naked fear on every face"

Rush, "Bastille Day" live 1976

Will I ever tire of posting this every July 14th?  No.  No I shall not.

Meanwhile, the mask has fallen completely from the Orange One and his party of racist deplorables.  And it won't really matter -- anyone with two brain cells knew what was up from the beginning.  But at least we can stop playing pretend regarding the GOP, which is now officially and always the party of White Supremacy.

"The light of my life is going out tonight / In a pink champagne Corvette"

Purple Mountains, Darkness and Cold"

I mean, if we're getting new music from Dave Berman then 2019 can't be the shittiest year on record, now can it?

Purple Mountains is the new project from Dave Berman (Silver Jews) and it's predictably sad and beautiful.

Gorgeous Swedish Murder Cultists

All I have to say about Midsommar at the moment is that it's good, it's brutal, and there's no way in hell it shouldn't have gotten an NC-17 rating rather than an R one.

"these guys can play"

I'm obviously a big fan of Korean baseball, and I've always been fascinated by the lives of the (by rule) three foreigners, almost always American or arriving via MLB, every Korean squad is allowed to carry.  So here's a great interview with a few of them:

"How competitive do you feel the KBO is compared to what you faced in the States?

Lindblom: These guys can play. There are some really good ballplayers here. I think one of the common misconceptions when new foreign-born players who show up is that they feel that they can dominate the league. You see with a lot of guys that that doesn’t happen. It’s been a learning process for myself too. Hitters can hit. You put the majority of these guys in a Triple-A lineup and they can hold their own. There are a few guys you can put in a major league lineup and they would hold their own. There are some different areas where it’s not as developed, maybe like defense isn’t as important as it is in the States, but the players are really good.

Romak: It’s the hardest question to answer. These leagues are so different. It’s an unfair comparison because there’s one night you can face a 19-year old kid who, in the States, because of his age, he might be in A-ball. But here, he’s in the country’s version of major leagues. He has good stuff but he’s really young. The next night, you could face a veteran guy whose talent might be MLB-level. When KIA was really strong [back in their championship 2017 season], facing their lineup – that’s better than a Triple-A lineup, for sure. One night, it looks Triple-A. The next night, it looks Double-A. It’s just a very different league. That being said, there are tons of talented guys here."

I've always described an average KBO squad (Korean Baseball Organization) as somewhere between American AA and AAA farm clubs, with the top two or three at AAA level with a few MLB caliber prospects.  There are also some very interesting insights into the family lives of these guys as well, so read the whole thing.

Space Is The Place

"There is, of course, another way to meet people.  It is called networking.  Networking is what people have to do when those with like interests live too far apart to be thrown together in public spaces through chance and propinquity.  Networking is what people in small towns have to do to establish any complex cultural life today.

But contemporary networking is notably different from contact.

At first one is tempted to set contact and networking in opposition.  Networking tends to be professional and motive-driven.  Contact tends to be more broadly social and appears random.  Networking crosses class lines only in the most vigilant manner.  Contact regularly crosses class lines in those public spaces in which interclass encounters are at their most frequent.  Networking is heavily dependent on institutions to promote the necessary propinquity (gyms, parties, twelve-step programs, conferences, reading groups, singing groups, social gathering, workshops, tourist groups, and classes), where those with the requisite social skills can maneuver.  Contact is associated with public space and the architecture and commerce that depend on and promote it.  Thus contact is often an outdoor sport; networking tends to occur indoors."

-- Samuel Delany, Times Square Red, Times Square Blue