Poem in which I have wisdom. Poem in which I have a father. Poem in which I care. Poem in which I am from another country. Poem in which I Spanish. Poem in which flowers are important. Poem in which I make pretty gestures. Poem in which I am a Deceptacon. Poem in which I am a novelist. Poem in which I use trash. Poem in which I am a baby. Poem in which I swaddle. Poem in which I bathe. Poem in which I am a box. Poem in which its face is everything. Poem in which faces are everywhere. Poem in which I swear. Poem in which I take an oath. Poem in which I make a joke. Poem in which I can’t move. – Paola Capó-García (American poet)
I decided to take a break from documenting my visit to Oregon and my uncle’s health crisis to address the elections held this week in South Korea.
As my sister said, off-handedly, just now, “there are no coincidences in politics.” Thus, the fact that the Kim-DJT summit in Singapore was held this week, right before the elections, can hardly be imagined but to have been some bit of orchestration on the part of the South Koreans. And the incumbent president Moon Jae-in and his left-leaning 더불어민주당 [deobuleominjudang ~ “together democratic party”] clearly had decided that the blustery leaders’ drafty summiteering would benefit them electorally. It did.
Arguably, Korea experienced a “blue wave” such as some are forecasting for the US elections this Fall. Which is odd not just because Korea isn’t in the US, but because this is a kind of Korean mid-term, and as such, just like a US mid-term, you’d expect things to swing the other way. Since Moon had won in 2016, it seemed that things should swing rightward for this election. That didn’t happen. The main right-leaning party remains in disarray following the impeachment scandals that led to Moon’s election, and Moon is benefiting from domestic fears that Mr T is going to mess things up for South Korea.
So it goes. It’s interesting to compare the 2016 electoral map and the 2018 electoral map. You see the “blue wave”, barely noticeable and somewhat ambivalent in 2016, engulfing the country this time around. I have the 2016 map in my blog post from that election. And here is this year’s, below.
I like electoral maps. They’re interesting. Call me an amateur psephological cartographer. [daily log: walking, 5km]
Of course, my beloved uncle Arthur is the reason for this trip. He had a small stroke while working outdoors at his place in Alaska, and consequently fell down an embankment, breaking his neck (literally) and experiencing a concussion, with concomitant brain injury, impacting memory and cognition.
Alaska is not a good place to get treatment for those things, so he was air-ambulanced from Ketchikan down to Seattle, and upon discharge from the hospital he has been staying with our very close and long-term family friends who live west of Portland, Oregon. He has stayed here so many times before, over the last 30 years, that it is a familiar place with familiar people (both of which is helpful relative to the memory issues).
Anyway, that's just a short summary of why I'm here. Arthur is still just Arthur, despite the current situation – his personality is unchanged and in some situations you'd never realize what could be wrong.
Today we had Korean Shin Ramyeon (Korean-style spicy ramen, 신라면). Keith had said he liked ramen and I was telling him about spicy Korean style, which is different than the non-spicy Japanese style that is popular in the US. So when I saw the Shin Ramyeon on the shelf in the Fred Meyer store in Forest Grove the other day, I bought some. And today, we had it for lunch.
Arthur and Keith both liked it – I expected they would, because they both like spicy food, anyway. So we had a Korean 분식 (bunshik = fast food) lunch. Here's Arthur with his ramen. Note that he doesn't normally use chopsticks – he was hamming slightly for the camera.
Later, I went to the airport and fetched my sister, who is flying up will be here after I leave to return to Korea on Friday.
Juli and Keith have a dog. He is a dachshund named Walter.
He likes to eat carrots and strawberries. Which is strange for a dog, frankly. Sometimes when Arthur and I go out for a walk we take Walter along. He has to check his "pee-mail" as Juli likes to say. I think this is a hilarious concept, but weirdly accurate, as he must sniff every tree and bush between their house and the mailboxes up by the main road, which is about 1 km.
Here is Walter eating a strawberry. You can just sort of make it out entering his mouth. That's a blurry strawberry, not his tongue.
We had a very full morning of appointments, today down in the Portland at the VA, again. It's a hard situation. Sometimes we feel optimism, and sometimes we don't. Such is life.
Routines broken, it's easy to lose track, drift among the flowers of consciousness, wanting to taste all the lost memories, but the tongue is numb, there's no flavor left.
We had a pretty full day. We got up at 4:45 because we had to go to the VA facilities in Vancouver, north of the river, for a 7:30 appointment, and we had to avoid the worst traffic through Portland. The appointment was routed to the Vancouver facilities because it was the earliest appointment available with the team we needed to see.
After several hours of appointments, we got an X-ray they wanted, and then we found out we had to go to the Portland VA center to fill out a form so the X-ray would go to the right place. Typical bureaucratic runaround…. Anyway, busy day.
At the Portland VA hospitals, they have a pedestrian skybridge that connects to the Oregon Health Sciences University, which shares the same hilltop location with the VA. Here is a picture of the skybridge.
From the skybridge, you can see a bit of downtown Portland and the Willamette river.
Juli is giving me pea soup to eat (she makes it in batches and has containers of it frozen). I like pea soup – as I've blogged before.
Today she gave me a bowl to put my pea soup in, and pointed out that my father had made the bowl. Really.
Back when I was quite young, my father and mother had a potter's wheel in the back shed at our house in Arcata. Both of them made pottery at various points. Apparently Juli has inherited portions of the collection that had been built up there – which is logical, as she and Keith were also members of the same community at that time.
So here is my pea soup. After I was finished, I washed my bowl and took it outside to photograph my father's signature on the bottom of the bowl.
I had a day off from riding along with Arthur to his appointments, because he didn't have any appointments. So I decided to go visit some of my other relatives and friends who are clustered in this part of the world. Actually, just based on that factor, I suppose that although I have never lived in the Portland region, it is nevertheless a kind of "hometown" for me.
First I drove down to Eugene, which is actually a few hours, but I didn't mind – I enjoy road trips as long as they're not a requirement of my day-to-day life, and with not having a car in Korea, in fact I only do driving one week or two out of each year. So I headed down the west side of the Willamette Valley through McMinnville and Corvallis, and saw my aunt and uncle Janet and Bob – who are on my father's side and so unrelated to my maternal uncle Arthur, who is my main reason for this visit.
I enjoyed that visit, and the scattered fogs and periodic bouts of rain going down and back up the valley. I spent about 4 hours there, having coffee and talking, catching up on things. I really enjoy the company of Janet and Bob, and it's worth noting that they lived with us in Arcata when I an infant, and thus Janet was one of my first baby sitters, though I don't remember that as I was only an infant.
I drove back up the east side of the Valley on I-5, through Albany and Salem and to Portland, where I met up with an old schoolmate Raven who lives there. We haven't in fact seen each other since high school, and in high school we were in different social circles so in fact we haven't interacted since grade school, but we were in the same class for two years in 5th and 6th grade. So it was interesting to sit and chat about such ancient times after so long. Then I drove back out to Forest Grove and met my cousin Jori (also on my father's side, my father's and Janet's niece from another Way family sibling, Freda). I had dinner with her and her husband at a Peruvian restaurant in Forest Grove. It was nostalgic to have Peruvian food, because when I lived in Long Beach I used to go to this Peruvian place with my coworkers that was nearby to where we were working on that big project in Costa Mesa. And I've always like Peruvian cuisine, which is hard to find in Korea. Go figure.
I was surprised to learn that my second cousin Philip (Jori's son, who is, incidentally, named for my father) has recently become the proprietor of a pub in Forest Grove, which is a popular spot for students at the nearby Pacific University, which is where our family friend Juli (who I am staying with, here) has been a physics professor for so many years. So we had dessert (a chocolate creme brulee with strawberries) at the pub and chatted a little about how he's hoping to succeed with this new business venture. I was just impressed to think there is a relative of mine who owns a pub.
Here are some pictures.
Driving down the valley.
With aunt Janet and Bob at their place.
The hillside at Janet and Bob's place.
Some impressively authentic Peruvian food. I had chaufa with some ceviche before that.
ㅁ
So we took a walk up the sloping road,
Arthur and I, but we didn't talk much.
The road was scattered with brown husks of spring.
The sky was painted with curved, cobalt clouds.
The air smelled of childhood and vague regrets.
– a pentastich of indeterminate pentameter (if it’s iambic, it’s not very good).
My experience at Seatac passport control yesterday was surreally 21st century in character.
I was standing in line. And standing. A very long time standing. And then… one line manager official mentioned that those with "mobile passport" got to use an expedited line. I began wondering what this "mobile passport" might be.
So seeing as I was standing there with nothing to do, and I had a good airport wifi connection, I researched it on my phone's internet browser. Lo and behold, there was a "TSA-approved" app in the google play store.
I downloaded the app to my phone. I knelt on the floor and scanned my passport into the app. I stood against the wall and took a really bad selfie, and I loaded the pic to my phone and added it to the app. I checked a bunch of boxes on the forms in the app, possibly turning my soul over to the TSA. And voila, I got a QR code on my phone, which then I showed to the line official. "Oh, step right over there," he said, opening the little vinyl strap separating the lines. I only had to stand in line 5 minutes after that.
Perhaps the difference between Korea and the US is that at the Korean border, such automation (with accompanying surrender of privacy) is obligatory, and thus relatively painless, whereas in the US, such post-modern efficiencies always tend to be "opt in" which means that many others are left in the "slow lane."
This is a scheduled (automated) blog post, which will go through in the event I'm lacking an internet connection tomorrow when I might normally post.
What I might be hypothetically listening to – I'm really into that oldschool Mexican hip-hop lately, especially Control Machete, so this is a good guess, and a really amazing song, with a lot going on in it, from jazz riffs to Cuban politics, and a nice collaboration with the Mexican alt rock group Cafe Tacvba.
Control Machete, "Danzón - (feat. Café Tacuba)."
Letra.
Si crees que se le está acabando el vuelo, no Esto está comenzando El danzón ya empezó a tocar (pararara) y no ha terminado, no El paso del tiempo va imponiendo el respeto y la calidad va mano a mano con la cantidad, viene (Viene) viene marcando la pauta y el sentimiento Mi vida empieza desde adentro Siempre brota lo que siento Es verdad lo digo y me comprometo Responsable soy y lo lamento Pero creo que es el crecimiento Por ahora está en el mejor momento El amanecer siempre aparece corrigiendo al anochecer y las cosas que se ven nacer Hay que verlas madurar y crecer Viviendo por suerte y clandestinamente Más no estaba muerto solamente ausente Si paré de pronto, nunca indiferente No acabó el danzón y sigue igual que siempre Si continúa el corazón Ritmos unidos sobre ilusión Noche a noche se escucha la voz Los de tambores, acordes y son Mandar obedeciendo en el danzón Songoro cosongo songe be Songoro cosongo de mamey Que se está bailando en cada rincón Que está sonando en tu corazón Suena que suena las cartas sobre la mesa No hay quien detenga esto nadie se mueva Así es, todo tiene su tiempo y si estás dispuesto A sembrar y cultivar hay que ver el fruto madurar Hasta donde puede llegar sólo hay que desarrollar Ampliar, solamente crear es inmenso el lugar Espacio suficiente como para cohabitar Escucha mi tierra hare eco Entre las montañas se hare camino el concreto Señales de humo que van creciendo cada día más Tratando de comunicar Exponiendo los adentros a la luz como van Sin borrar nada sin tapar nada sin ocultar nada Se presentan testimonios reales El sentimiento no es más que puras verdades Reuniendo por suerte y discretamente Más no estaba lejos respectivamente Si lo que se mueve proviene del vientre No acabó el danzón y ha de seguir pa' siempre Si se ha dado la ocasión Ciertos sonidos de imaginación Día a día que visita el sol Los de tambores, acordes y son Mandar obedeciendo en el danzón Songoro cosongo songe be Songoro cosongo de mamey Es guardar silencio de movimiento Ayunar de color y sonido Ser mujer viejo y niño y dejarse llevar…
I will go to the airport in a few hours and fly to Seattle later this afternoon.
I actually don't much enjoy flying. Who does? It's like a very laborious, slow-motion teleportation experience.
I've scheduled (pre-posted) the next few posts on this blog, in the event I'm too busy traveling or out of the loop in terms of internet access.
I'll land in Seattle "today" (June 6) at around 2 PM, I think. Which is to say, I'll arrive before I left, as normally happens when traveling from the ROK to the US. That's because Korea exists in the future.
I've activated facebook on phone, despite my misgivings about that app and company. I'll will use that tool for travel updates and staying in touch, too.
[daily log: walking, 3 km (mostly in the airports, right?)]
Microsoft is buying GitHub. If you've never worked in the field of software development or systems administration, this is meaningless to you. GitHub, however, is a remarkable and important website if you do things with computers at the level development. In my recent adventures with setting up my own fully functional Ubuntu server running the "OSM stack", GitHub was nigh indispensable.
My take on this acquisition can be simplified as follows:
Good for Microsoft: looks like I won't be selling my Microsoft stock anytime soon. Like the company's other gestures toward the Linux ecosystem (e.g. SQL Server for Linux, the bash shell for Windows), it shows that the bigwigs at MS "get" where the best devs are at. Devs appear to be in the driver's seat in Redmond, and it shows in many of their decisions.
Bad for me: in my role as a free software consumer, I'm preemptively depressed. At some point, gates are likely to appear on this once-upon-a-time opensource Mecca. Should I close my GitHub account now, or wait for Microsoft to send me a notification about my "free upgrade to a paid account" in the uncertain future?
I have been working quite a bit on my fictional “US” state, Makaska. But for the most part I am focused on physical geography: refinining the contour files (a continuous work-in-progress), and thinking about the hydrology (rivers and lakes) and landcover (grasslands and woods).
I did set up 2nd order political divisions (counties) which I have decided to call parishes. And I set up a moribund rural township system which will drive things like road layout, farms, etc., when the time comes, and which is intended to replicate the old US PLSS system (see also my previous blog post here). The townships will also be the basis for my landcover relations – a six mile square seems about the right level of scale for a specific landcover relation, not so big as to be unmanageable once a high level of detail is introduced, but not to local so as to be difficult to develop systematically.
I’m pretty happy with the map already. There are so many lakes! And I’m just getting started. Minnesota allegedly has 10,000 lakes – in fact, it’s quite a lot more than that, from what I’ve heard, but that’s the round number used when marketing the state, and if you impose a cut-off at lakes around the size of 5 acres, 10,000 is pretty close.
I suppose I could shoot for a pro-rated number of lakes for the much smaller Makaska. If Minnesota has 10,000 at 86,936 sq mi, that’s 0.11 lakes/sq mi. So if Makaska has 6875 sq mi, then it should have 756 lakes of 5 acres or more. I may be getting close to that already.
I've been a bit glum and very withdrawn as I confront getting ready for this unexpected trip, the situation with my uncle's health, my own feeling that a sea change of sorts is approaching in how my own life is organized…
So I settled into an escapist weekend of map-drawing and music (mostly Mexican hiphop – go figure, right?).
Life goes on. Wednesday, I fly to Seattle. Meanwhile, I have a vast pile of things to take care of for work.
Meanwhile, a humorous, 400 year old quote:
"Your peevish chastity is not worth a breakfast in the cheapest country." – William Shakespeare, in "Pericles, Prince of Tyre."
We only face our mortality just one person by one person. Mortality can't be met as an abstract concept – rather, it is some impossible unlikely lurking thing.
Control Machete – De Perros Amores. The video is weird, creepy, and borderline NSFW. That said, it's a scene from the eponymous movie for which this song is the title track.
La calidad de las letras disponibles en línea no es muy buena, e hice varios cambios y ajustes, pero todavía no son exactos. Parece que probablemente había mal entendido por lo menos algunas palabras. Específicamente, yo siempre he oído la línea del coro "atardece en ti" como "harta de sentir" – frase que igual incluso tiene su propio sentido dentro de la lógica de la canción. Tal vez la ambigüidad es intencional.
Letras.
Suficientes son los problemas de un solo día Como para preocuparse del futuro (¿Cual?) Olvidamos que para poder llegar al otro lado Hay que empezar derribando el primero de los muros Nos pasamos la vida viendo triunfos y fracasos Conseguidos en tiempo pretérito ¿Cuantas veces se ha detenido el sol a mediodía? (¿Cuantas?) ¿Por que ya no quiere vivir más atardeceres? (¿Cuantas veces?)
El negro dejara de ser negro sin el blanco El bueno dejara de ser bueno sin el malo
Rutina repetitiva que constantemente termina Puede empezar de nuevo da fruto la semilla ¿Por que envejece por que tu piel se va arrugando? El paso del tiempo una broma te está jugando ¿Sabes que la codicia puede dejarte en la ruina? ¿Quieres solucionarlo? ¡borrarlo de tu vida! de perros amores ¡borrarlo de tu vida! de perros amores ¡borrarlo de tu vida!
si alguna vez si alguna vez si alguna vez si alguna vez
Amanece el alma atardece en ti
Amanece el alma atardece en ti
acción es en real voluntad sensación, la velocidad fé e ilusión orgánica coincidencia armónica
No existe ningún borrador mágico para borrar todos los errores cometidos ¿Que pasaría si las flores solo se marchitaran? ¿O solo se quedaran como botones? Duele la realidad, duele la fantasía solo se queda en los sueños ¿Que pasaría si nunca muero? ¿y no tuviera la oportunidad de nacer de nuevo?
Amanece el alma (vuelve otra vez, aparece) atardece en ti (desapareces, te vas y vuelves)
Amanece el alma (vuelve otra vez, aparece) atardece en ti (desapareces, te vas y vuelves)
Amanece el alma (vuelve otra vez, aparece) atardece en ti (desapareces, te vas y vuelves)
Amanece el alma (vuelve otra vez, aparece) atardece en ti (desapareces, te vas y vuelves)
We were doing short-speech responses to speaking questions. The question was, "Do you like your family, or not? What are the best and worst parts of your family?"
6th grader Jaehyeon, incorporating a very long pause as he groped for a possible answer, said, "The best part of my family is… me!"
"I see," I said, mildly amused. "So, what's the worst part of your family, then?" I prompted.
"The worst part is… not me. The other ones."
At that, I laughed. At least he was being consistent.
What I'm listening to right now.
Imagine Dragons, "Believer." This was a song recently chosen by one of my students for a CC class. It's grown on me, as tends to happen when I teach a song to several classes over as many days. I like how it's structured like a good debate speech: "First things first… second things second," etc. I pointed this out to the students and they just groaned.
Lyrics.
First things first I'ma say all the words inside my head I'm fired up and tired of the way that things have been, oh ooh The way that things have been, oh ooh Second thing second Don't you tell me what you think that I can be I'm the one at the sail, I'm the master of my sea, oh ooh The master of my sea, oh ooh I was broken from a young age Taking my sulking to the masses Write down my poems for the few That looked at me, took to me, shook to me, feeling me Singing from heartache from the pain Taking my message from the veins Speaking my lesson from the brain Seeing the beauty through the … pain You made me a, you made me a believer, believer (Pain, pain) You break me down, you build me up, believer, believer (Pain) Oh let the bullets fly, oh let them rain My life, my love, my drive, it came from (Pain) You made me a, you made me a believer, believer Third things third Send a prayer to the ones up above All the hate that you've heard has turned your spirit to a dove, oh ooh Your spirit up above, oh ooh I was choking in the crowd Building my rain up in the cloud Falling like ashes to the ground Hoping my feelings, they would drown But they never did, ever lived, ebbing and flowing Inhibited, limited 'Til it broke up and it rained down It rained down, like … pain You made me a, you made me a believer, believer (Pain, pain) You break me down, you built me up, believer, believer (Pain) I let the bullets fly, oh let them rain My life, my love, my drive, it came from (Pain) You made me a, you made me a believer, believer Last things last By the grace of the fire and the flames You're the face of the future, the blood in my veins, oh ooh The blood in my veins, oh ooh But they never did, ever lived, ebbing and flowing Inhibited, limited 'Til it broke up and it rained down It rained down, like … pain You made me a, you made me a believer, believer (Pain, pain) You break me down, you built me up, believer, believer (Pain) I let the bullets fly, oh let them rain My life, my love, my drive, it came from (Pain) You made me a, you made me a believer, believer
