Books, blog and other blather
“Heliopolis Rising,” a new short story of mine, was just published in Polar Borealis, a zine dedicated to Canadian speculative fiction. It’s been a while since I had something new in print, so it feels pretty good. Many thanks to Graeme Cameron for picking my story.
It’s also the first bit of fiction I’ve had published that is totally Korea-free. So that feels pretty good, too (not that there’s anything wrong with Korea, of course).
So, now that YOUNG-HEE & THE PULLOCHO is out of print, the ebook is the main way people can buy it (revised, with an added short story!). However, I realize that not everyone likes reading ebooks.
Luckily, I have a solution for those of you who prefer reading physical, printed books — it just so happens that I have a whole bunch left. First editions! (Well, there was only one edition, but still …)
So, if anyone would like an old-fashioned printed edition of YOUNG-HEE & THE PULLOCHO, you can buy them directly from me. I guess $5 plus shipping is fine (up to you what kind of shipping you want). Heck, I’m happy to sign it, too, if you’re into that sort of thing.
Just drop me an email at mrussell (at) pobox.com with your details, and you, too, can be the owner of a physical copy of YOUNG-HEE & THE PULLOCHO.
I’ve been a fan of the Raptors since their founding 24 years ago — 24 mostly depressing years. There were a few glimmers of success, but only a few and they rarely lasted. Then the Kyle Lowry-DeMar DeRozan team began to click and we enjoyed five years of pretty decent basketball … followed by ugly playoff flameouts.
So, when we traded for Kawhi Leonard this year, I was really excited. He’s long been one of my favorite players, and we lost DeRozan (who, while I respect as a thoroughly decent human being and an incredibly loyal, driven player, just isn’t a great fit for today’s NBA game and is not a good defender). But could I ever have imagined … this?
Well, yes — yes, I could. But I can imagine a lot of things. Realisticly, did I think we would win? No, not really. I assumed I was just being crazy. But when it happened — damn, it felt good!
I mean, I’ve never really enjoyed having my team win it all. I’m not a big baseball fan, so the Blue Jays wins in the early 1990s didn’t mean much to me (although it was fun living in Baltimore when the Jays won because at the time, Baltimoreans hated the Jays). The Leafs have never won while I’ve been alive, and when I was growing up, I was more of a Canadiens fan — but winning for the Canadiens in the 1970s was just kind of assumed.
But to follow a team like the Raptors for two-and-a-half decades and finally win it? That was so fun. Especially for a team like the Raptors. No one drafted higher than 15th! With players like Marc Gasol drafted in the second round and others, like Fred VanVleet, not drafted at all. They were just a smart, relentless team of grinders. No prima donnas. That’s a great team to be a fan of.
And, of course, there was “the shot”.
Kawhi’s series-winning shot to end the second-round series against the 76ers.
Bouncing four times — four! — on the rim before dropping.
Nearly the same shot that Vince Carter botched in game 7 against the 76ers 18 years ago. That was sheer sports poetry.
I’m so happy for Kawhi Leonard, the best two-way player in the league and just a force of nature. For Marc Gasol, the awesome Catalan. For Pascal Siakam, the third-year player who blossomed this season, seemingly from out of nowhere to become a true star (oh, and he just won the Most Improved Player award for last season!). For Van Vleet, who suffered through so much criticism (including by me) to turn things around and become such an important player to this championship.
And especially for Kyle Lowry. He’s had some bad playoff series in the past. But in game 6 against the Warriors he hit his first four shots and got the Raptors first 11 points. In the first half, he had 21 points, 6 assists and 6 rebounds. But all playoffs long, he just hustled and played amazingly.
So, yeah. It’s been a fun couple of months. I watched nearly all the games from my iPhone, nestled beside my computer at work (because of the time difference in Korea, most of the games started around the time I got to work in the morning). And now my wonderful Raptors are NBA champs.
(Okay, thanks for indulging that. I’ll probably write more about my writing and Korea and my usual stuff soon. There are some interesting things going on that I hope to be able to talk about soon).
Hard to believe it has been over a year since I updated this blog. Sorry for the silence, but—what can I say?—the family and work thing really eat up a lot of time. And when I do find some time, I prefer to use it to write.
And I am still writing. On several different things, actually, but nothing that I can talk about yet. Hopefully there’s one in particular that I will be able to talk about soon.
As for the year that was … Well, I guess it was a huge year for K-pop. BTS absolutely blew up in the West, which was pretty cool to see. And that led to a bunch of journalists asking to talk to me — which is quite flattering, but I decided that I’m just not in the loop enough anymore to be commenting, so told everyone to talk to other experts.
Korean movies have had an off year, at least in commercial terms — with a week left, it looks like they’ll have the lowest box office in five or six years, and the lowest percentage for local movies in four or five years (although it could be the biggest grossing year overall, thanks to rising prices). But there was one big of really fun news – the success of Lee Chang-dong’s BURNING, which has been shortlisted for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy of Motion Pictures Awards. It would be pretty awesome if it was the first Korean movie to get nominated for a foreign-language-film Oscar.
Oh, and the Raptors look to be having their best season ever. That’s pretty exciting.
Apropro of nothing, here’s a photo from Jakarta, from a recent trip I took there. Quite a place. And I hope to have some fun updates coming here before too long.
Okay, I really took my time with this, but, at long last, Pop Goes Korea is available for Kobo eBook readers, too. Hurray. Signing up was a snap (in part because the formatting for Amazon worked just fine for this version, too). They didn’t ask for any difficult information, and everything was pretty fast.
This Kobo version should be just the same as the version over on Amazon, but if anyone finds anything wrong with the Kobo version, please let me know. Still no ebook for Barnes & Noble, though. For whatever reason, B&N’s ebook store doesn’t allow self-publishing for Canadians. Weird.
Anyhow, it’s great to be online at another popular outlet. I hope you Kobo readers enjoy it.
A completely biased and arbitrary list, but here’s my selection of the top three K-pop songs for the year.
And what a year it was. K-pop definitely reached new heights in North America and there was no shortage of solid songwriting with great hooks. Much like the Korean movie industry, K-pop has lost some of the rough and unpredictable elements that once made it so charming; but, instead, now it boasts better than ever quality. Maybe the most dynamic and interesting musically since 2012? Ever?
It’s also a time of big changes for K-pop, as much of the last generation of superstars is fading away, whether because of breaking up or military service or just getting older. But while losing so many big names hurts, I think the new talent rising up more than makes up for it. Because pop music always needs new faces, new ideas and new sounds to stay fresh.
Anyhow, as for my top-3 list for 2017:
1. BTS “DNA”
I’m not a huge BTS fan, but there’s no denying that they’ve had one of the biggest years for any K-pop act ever. And “DNA” was a serious earworm. It sounds all right on headphones, but I think it’s qualities really shine in a club or other big, banging soundsystem.
2. Uhm Jung-hwa “Ending Credit”
Uhm Jung-hwa goes synthwave! Hard to believe Uhm Jung-hwa has been cranking out pop hits for 20 years now. And while I haven’t really listened to her much in a few years, this song was just amazing. Like something Giorgio Moroder might have cooked up.
3. Hyolyn “Blue Moon”
Okay, this is a bit of a random choice, but screw it, it’s my list and I really liked this song.
By far the most impactful and memorable class I took in university was a figure drawing class I took freshman year. It was great spending six hours a week trying to figure out the human form, but what was really amazing about the course was the professor, Robert Engman.
Robert was actually a sculptor, but apparently he was unhappy with some of the foundational abilities of his students, so set up a figure drawing class loosely modeled on how he had learned to draw at the Rhode Island School of Design. He didn’t care if you were an MFA student, a BFA, or just a random undergraduate from any other school, he just liked mentoring and helping young people learn to see better (which is, after all, the true foundation of art).
In between drawing sessions, Robert would talk. And talk and talk and talk — about pretty much anything. Art, life, yoga, his military service in WWII, the New York art scene of the 1960s. He was one of the least pretentious and most accomplished people I’ve ever met. He could be incredibly demanding, but at the same time he was also always kind and thoughtful*.
Which is why I was so happy to discover that someone has posted an extended interview with Robert from his home studio just outside of Philadelphia. Robert is 89 years old now (and the interview was done a couple of years ago), but his soft voice and eclectic thoughts are just like I remember from when I studied with him, nearly 30 years ago.
In addition to Robert’s incredible range of brilliant insights about life, I also loved his approach to art. In particular, I love how his concept of what is important about art revolved around the artist, not the audience or the critic. He would say things like:
“When you go to a museum and you see an array of finished, so-called important works of art, that doesn’t have much to do with what they’re really about. But if you start to paint yourself, now you find out how closely you locate what painters ultimately come to when they start to invent things of their own.
“There’s a whole world of common human experiences, things we share together, and we can talk about it and have ideas. But there’s one thing that takes place in us that can’t be shared with anyone else, and that’s the connection those things have through us.
“I’ve made I-don’t-know-how-many pieces of art, but I’m the only one who knows what that is. You can show them the things, but that doesn’t tell them what that is.”
Or:
“A piece of art is never a finished work. It answers a question which has been asked, and asks a new question.”
And I loved how comfortable he was with commercialism. He used to talk about how the “proper” size for an artwork was the minimum you needed to explore an idea. Big works which were big for no reason were basically pretentious nonsense. However, he was also aware that artists need to eat, so if you took your minimalist idea and blew it up huge to make some money, that was totally all right. As Robert used to say:
“Two-thirds art, one-third paying the rent is fine. One-third art and two-thirds paying the rent is fine, too. As long as it all isn’t just to pay the rent.”
Which is good advice, considering his “Triune” sculpture, near Philadelphia City Hall, is pretty frickin’ huge.
Anyhow, if you have the time, take a listen. I hope you’ll find him as fascinating, brilliant, and wonderful as I do.
—————
*Note: This is 2017, when all our idols are revealed have feet of clay. So if Robert turns out to be a Balrog in human form or something similarly terrible, apologies in advance.
Recently, new and improved card readers have been installed throughout the Seoul subway system. And I guess they’re better now, with a more sensitive scanner and a small screen so you can get messages when something goes wrong (instead of just a cryptic numeric message, like the old system).
But seeing the readers getting installed got me thinking about the Seoul subway system and how much it has changed since I first arrived in Korea. You can see it in a lot of the stations — like Sangil Station, at the very end of the No. 5 subway line.
Some stations have managed to hide their histories, but not Sangil. You can clearly see where the old ticket machines and ticket counters used to be. Back in the 1990s, Seoul’s public transit was ticket-based, with little paper tickets you needed for every trip. There were single-use tickets, 10-trip tickets and other passes.
Naturally, to accommodate millions of subway riders, you needed to have many, many places to buy all those tickets. But no matter how many machines and agents there were, you still had lines most of the time. God, waiting to buy a ticket as you could hear your subway approaching was one of the most stressful things.
I always find it fascinating how these little structural changes can have such big changes in our lives. The lines are gone. All those ticket agents are gone. Plus you can track all the subways and buses from your phone, so you always know how long you have. Now that the whole Seoul system is all electronic, though, it’s hard to remember what that used to be like.
(Well, maybe not that hard. You can always just go to Tokyo and take the subway there. ^^ )
Btw, Sangil isn’t going to be the desolate end of the line for much longer. The No. 5 line is getting extended all the way to Misari in Hanam City, and with the extension, Gangdong-gu is doing a major commercial buildup of everything from Godeok Station to Sangil Station. The neighborhood is going to be very, very different very soon.
Gangdong-gu isn’t the sexiest district in Seoul. When I first moved here, after years in the fun of Seodaemun, Mapo and Jongno, I was a bit appalled. But I have to admit, Gangdong has slowly started to grow on me.
Thursday I took a little walk and fun some random things that really amused me. For one, Gangdong has a lot of green space. Here’s a couple of pics from near the Han River, right across from the Walker Hill Hotel.
Green space, however, also means it has a surprising number of derelict buildings scattered throughout the district. Real Buffalo Bill places.
And then, while going past a sad little garage near Amsa Station, I saw this: a Ferrari getting some serious work done.
Oh, and here are a couple of photos of the Chuseok night moon. We had some great views of it in my part of town.
Okay, I must admit, I have a bit of a strange hobby. I love reading the YouTube comments for great classicals recordings and discovering caustic insults and blistering flamewars. Not for some random amateur making a hash of a famous piece. I mean the great recordings, made by some of the most talented musicians of our era.
These days, the world is an angry place. And you might think the world of classical music might provide a respite from the rage. But, as it turns out, no. Apparently neither education nor refined subject matter can prevent people from being people.
(Warning: Plenty of naughty words)
Murray Perahia’s Goldberg Variations
My favorite comment:
no! he is shit. Bach does not come to him naturally. Listen to Sir Andras Schiff for fuck’s sake!!!
NES Chamber Orchestra’s Goldberg Variations (for string ensemble)
Favorite comment:
This version is at best a curiosity and baroque background music. It is nothing more than a student exercise and should be looked upon as such. It is wrong on many levels. First the recording is awful. There is too much reverb and by the nature of a string instrument sustaining notes it should have been recorded with a closer, more direct microphone set up. There are way too many instruments which muddy the sound. It is vital to give importance to every note in a work like this. The interpretation is entirely mundane and without artistic merit. There is a reason for this not being transcribed in the past…
And it goes on …
Glenn Gould, Beethoven Emperor Concerto Nº5 E
There’s a great conversation in here:
Ethan
what the fuck does he do at the beginning!?? Does he really think Beethoven meant this groupings literally?!Seno
Beethoven meant everything literally.Ethan
no fool if you think that yiur just a robot and not a musicianSeno
You should stick to jazz or Beyonce and not concern yourself with german music.Ethan
you idiot. I’d rather stick to great music like beethoven. Read more about beethoven and you’ll find out the truth about his markingsSeno
“The truth about his marking”Lol.Let me guess:”It´s all like some halfwit music professor after the war said it is”Give me a break.
And they continue for quite some time.
Then again, professional music critics can be just as snotty and randomly biases (even if they happen to swear less). Andrew Clark in the FT a couple of years ago called Gould’s famous 1955 recording of the Goldberg Variations “too wilful and eccentric to rank as anything more than a curiosity.” Seriously? I mean, everyone has different tastes … But to utterly dismiss one of the great recordings? What a random bit of jerkiness.
Pop Goes Korea: Behind the Revolution in Movies, Music and Internet Culture (2nd edition) is the only English-language book to examine the whole of Korea's entertainment industry and how it became such a powerhouse over the past 20 years. With profiles of many of Korea's top stars (including Lee Byung-hun and Rain), Pop Goes Korea features chapters on movies, music, television, comic books, the Internet, and more.
On sale now at:
Amazon.com
Kobo eBooks
And hopefully more ebooks stores very soon.
The original edition of Pop Goes Korea is now out of print.
K-Pop Now! takes a fun look at Korea’s high-energy pop music, and is written for its growing legions of fans. It features all the famous groups and singers, and takes an insider’s look at how they have made it to the top.
You can buy at:
Amazon.com
Chapters Indigo
Tuttle (my publisher)
Kyobo Books (in Korea)
Goodreads (not for buying, but still a good link)
© 2024 Mark James Russell
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