So, my little lecture tour through the United States is about half over already. And so far it has been quite a lot of fun. It was interesting to see Philadelphia again (for the first time in over a decade … and my first time on Penn campus since 1996, I think). At the moment I am in my hotel room on the  Ohio State campus, waiting to give yet another talk. Some thoughts so far:

  • In Philadelphia, I went to the same diner that I used to frequent 20 year’s ago, Little Pete’s. Amazingly, the same two women were working the night shift there. Of course they did not remember me, but I certainly remember them — as foul-mouthed and kind as they ever were.
  • Nice to see that Philadelphia is so much less stabby than it used to be. Penn campus in particular was looking good.
  • Bloomington, Indiana is a lovely town and the Indiana University campus is very pretty.
  • But I cannot believe I went to Kilroy, the student pub. Raucous place.
  • Ohio State, in Columbus, is also a very nice campus. Apparently Columbus is going through something of a revival, with several parts of town getting fixed up and gentrified (or hipsterfied, anyhow).
  • Thanks to Richard Vega at Myx and Kai Ryssdal of Marketplace for taking the time to interview me about K-Pop Now.
  • Thanks to Tuttle for getting copies of my book to all the locations.