There’s a guy in Oregon that turned an old jetliner into his home.
This reminds me of the kind of thing my uncle would do – the uncle that lives in Alaska and travels the world as a helicopter pilot.
I don’t know why I feel so tired lately. Perhaps I’m getting sick, or maybe I’m letting myself get stressed out about work. But well… anyway. Life, it goes on.
[Daily log: walking, 4 km]
거짓말도 방편
falsehood-word-TOO expedient
Even a lie is expedient.
The end justifies the means. Eh? I try not to live by this maxim, but I know lots of people believe it.
Yesterday I stayed late at work, which is why I didn’t exercise. This morning I feel unmotivated. No lie.
I ran across this image a while back – from some episode of Spongebob Squarepants.
It’s Patrick’s to-do list, of course. I sometimes can relate – although my to-do list never says that. But sometimes, maybe it should, right? Zen.
The opposite of zen might be “nez.” How would this work? Always worrying, always stressing, always planning and organizing compulsively, never in-the-moment. Right?
Work is causing me some worry, these days – there will be a big announcement soon. More in the never-ending saga of “M&A: Korean hagwon industry edition” (that’s M&A = “Mergers and Acquisitions”). There, that’s a good teaser. But honestly, why should I worry. I’ll be fine. I’m not invested in it, and the contracts are always one year long. I hate to see what the kids go through, sometimes, though. Kids do best with stability. Adults all around the world are pretty lousy at providing that.
Finally, on my blog’s left-hand column, I have various widgets. I’m sometimes adding, deleting, moving them around. Did you see the new cost-of-war widget? I may tire of it soon – it’s depressing. But I thought I’d try it out.
The other day, my weather widget told me that the weather was “expired.”
That seemed rather apocalyptic.
[Daily log: walking, 3 km]
I dreamed a Xanth novel last night. This might require some background in order to be understandable to most people, I suspect – probably more background than I'm really willing to give… so perhaps you could spend some time on the topic using the wikithing if you're really interested (and who, reading this blog, is really interested?). My feeling about Piers Anthony's Xanth novels is that they're not as good as they seemed to me at the time when I read most of them, but they're not bad, either. They are good, optimistic, teenage boy nerd-lit.
OK. The dream. There was this dwarf or hobbit-looking character, who wore blue pajamas, and his special magic power was that his presence intensified the feelings of community and togetherness and the social cohesion of the people around him. A lot. But it worked very subtly, and in a way that did not make it obvious at all that his presence was the cause. Somehow I was on a quest – possibly to figure out my own magic power. All very typically Xanthian. There were weird espionage things going on, and I was peripheral to the central plot, more of an observer than a participant.
We sailed off across some sea, Dawn Treader style (see CS Lewis's Narnia series – and by the way, that's the only Narnia book I genuinely liked – and no, I've never seen any of the Narnia movies). The details of the dream have faded quickly since waking up, and so … I don't know exactly what happened. We landed on some new continent. There was a distraught princess who felt threatened by the dwarf character – perhaps she was aware of his magic power and was threatened. There was a fractious community that resembled an English hagwon that slowly became more harmonious because of the dwarf's secret magic. But then the dwarf was assissinated by a mule that had George W's face, and while the princess held the dead dwarf's hands and cried, I woke up.
Setting aside the annoying, brutalist symbolism toward the end, I'm genuinely interested in the narrative potential of the aspect regarding a "magic power" that intesnsifies communitarianism. I've long been intrigued by – and drawn to – concepts of intentional communities. I was deeply influenced by my "borderline hippy commune" childhood, no doubt. I suspect if there is a character in my real life that resembles this peculiar blue-pajama-wearing dwarf, it might be my mother – someone who sometimes seems better at creating community around herself than being in that community. I was struck by the aspect in which my role in the dream was as a spectator of community being built by others, rather than as a participant, myself. I wish I wasn't like that, but I accept that it's my natural role, maybe.
Walking Around
Sucede que me canso de ser hombre.
Sucede que entro en las sastrerías y en los cines
marchito, impenetrable, como un cisne de fieltro
Navegando en un agua de origen y ceniza.El olor de las peluquerías me hace llorar a gritos.
Sólo quiero un descanso de piedras o de lana,
sólo quiero no ver establecimientos ni jardines,
ni mercaderías, ni anteojos, ni ascensores.Sucede que me canso de mis pies y mis uñas
y mi pelo y mi sombra.
Sucede que me canso de ser hombre.Sin embargo sería delicioso
asustar a un notario con un lirio cortado
o dar muerte a una monja con un golpe de oreja.
Sería bello
ir por las calles con un cuchillo verde
y dando gritos hasta morir de fríoNo quiero seguir siendo raíz en las tinieblas,
vacilante, extendido, tiritando de sueño,
hacia abajo, en las tapias mojadas de la tierra,
absorbiendo y pensando, comiendo cada día.No quiero para mí tantas desgracias.
No quiero continuar de raíz y de tumba,
de subterráneo solo, de bodega con muertos
ateridos, muriéndome de pena.Por eso el día lunes arde como el petróleo
cuando me ve llegar con mi cara de cárcel,
y aúlla en su transcurso como una rueda herida,
y da pasos de sangre caliente hacia la noche.Y me empuja a ciertos rincones, a ciertas casas húmedas,
a hospitales donde los huesos salen por la ventana,
a ciertas zapaterías con olor a vinagre,
a calles espantosas como grietas.Hay pájaros de color de azufre y horribles intestinos
colgando de las puertas de las casas que odio,
hay dentaduras olvidadas en una cafetera,
hay espejos
que debieran haber llorado de vergüenza y espanto,
hay paraguas en todas partes, y venenos, y ombligos.
Yo paseo con calma, con ojos, con zapatos,
con furia, con olvido,
paso, cruzo oficinas y tiendas de ortopedia,
y patios donde hay ropas colgadas de un alambre:
calzoncillos, toallas y camisas que lloran
lentas lágrimas sucias.– Pablo Neruda
A veces me siento así igual. Mas en el momento me siento sólo solo, y cansado – pero no cansado de ser ser humano.
[Daily log: walking 5 km; running 3 km]
According to this article on the AP, suicides have exceeded war casualties among troops in Afghanistan this year. Partly, that underscores how few troops actually die fighting in Afghanistan – the drones help assure that mostly the people who die are on the other side. But this whole suicide-while-in-the-military tells me they’re doing something very wrong. I can speak from my own experience in the Army – when you feel there’s some moral failing in what you’re doing, it’s much easier to feel despair and get depressed. I think, therefore, that this suicide rate among troops is something we should pay attention to, vis-a-vis our moral instincts – do we have any?
What I’m listening to right now.
Radiohead, “Go To Sleep.” This song is awesome, and the video is cool too – I’d never seen it before searching for a version of the song to paste here.
Like every song from this album (Hail To The Thief), it makes me nostalgic for my massive 2003 road trip in Australia, when I discovered my rental car had a CD player and I went into some suburban Sydney Target store and bought a couple Radiohead CDs, which thus became my soundtrack for the trip up the coast from Sydney to Cairns (2000 km).
Lyrics.
Something for the rag and bone man
“Over my dead body”
Something big is gonna happen
“Over my dead body”Someone’s son or someone’s daughter
“Over my dead body”
This is how I end up sucked in
“Over my dead body”I’m gonna go to sleep
Let this wash all over meWe don’t wanna wake monster taking over
“Tiptoe round, tie him down”
We don’t want the loonies taking over
“Tiptoe round, tie them down”May pretty horses
Come to you as you sleep
I’m gonna go to sleep
Let this wash all over me
Some kids drew pictures of zoos for me.
Dayeon's is the best. Do you see that her zoo has hamsters and ants (lower left)? Do you see the girl taking a picture? Do you see the awesome alligators, with only their eyes peeking above the water? She's a pretty good artist for a third grader.
Here's a few by some other kids.
What I'm listening to right now.
[Update 2017-06-22: Video embed of song removed, due to link-rot, and because no other online embeddable version can be found. Sorry.]
Bob Dylan, "Man Gave Names to All the Animals." It's hard to find a good online version of this song. This is a live one that isn't such a great recording, but it's nevertheless an awesome song, and thematically appropriate for the evening. It always makes me remember, vividly, driving to Duluth in the 1980s.
Here are the lyrics.
Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, in the beginning
Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, long time ago.He saw an animal that liked to growl
Big furry paws and he liked to howl
Great big furry back and furry hair
"Ah, think I'll call it a bear".Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, in the beginning
Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, long time ago.He saw an animal up on a hill
Chewing up so much grass until she was filled
He saw milk coming out but he didn't know how
"Ah, think I'll call it a cow".Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, in the beginning
Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, long time ago.He saw an animal that liked to snort
Horns on his head and they weren't too short
It looked like there wasn't nothing that he couldn't pull
"Ah, I'll think I'll call it a bull".Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, in the beginning
Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, long time ago.
He saw an animal leaving a muddy trail
Real dirty face and a curly tail
He wasn't too small and he wasn't too big
"Ah, think I'll call it a pig".Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, in the beginning
Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, long time ago.Next animal that he did meet
Had wool on his back and hooves on his feet
Eating grass on a mountainside so steep
"Ah, think I'll call it a sheep".Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, in the beginning
Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, long time ago.He saw an animal as smooth as glass
Slithering his way through the grass
Saw him disappear by a tree near a lake ….
[Daily log: walking, 4 km; running, 3 km]
President Obama got in some trouble for saying this. But it’s true. Robert Wright at The Atlantic explains. Here is a graph from his article.
Wright speculates:
“What if Obama, rather than just try to walk back his unfortunate choice of words, trotted out some visual aids and spent 60 seconds explaining exactly what he meant? ‘Professorial’ can be a feature, not a bug.”
Haha. Obama’s having got defensive and backed down on this issue really does seem like a mistake, to me.
How freakin appropriate, given my feelings this weekend.
What I’m listening to right now.
X-Press (feat. David Byrne), “Lazy.” Actually, I wasn’t so lazy, listening to it. I went on a jog in the park, around the lake. The extended version is a better track, but the shorter version has the cool video, above.
Here’s the lyrics.
I’m lazy when I’m lovin and I’m lazy when I play
I’m lazy with my girlfriend a thousand times a day
I’m lazy when I’m speaking, I’m lazy when I walk
I’m lazy when I’m dancing and I’m lazy when I talkOpen up my mouth, air comes rushing out (sigh)
Nothing, doing nada, never, how d’you like me now?
Wouldn’t it be mad, wouldn’t it be fine
Lazy, lucky lady, dancing, loving all the timeOhhhhh I’m wicked and I’m lzy
Ohhhhh Don’t you want to save me?Some folks they got money and some folks love to sweep
Some folks make decisions and some folks clean the streets
Now imagine what it feels like, imagine how it sounds
Imagine life was perfect and everything works outNo tears are falling from my eyes
I’m keeping all the pain inside
Now don’t you want to live with me
I’m lazy as a man can beOhhhhh I’m wicked and I’m lazy
Ohhhhh Don’t you want to save me?Ooh-hoo
Imagine there’s a girlfriend, imagine there’s a job
Imagine there’s an answer, imagine there’s a God
Imagine I’m a devil, imagine I’m a saint
Lazy money, lazy, sexy, lazy outer spaceNo tears are falling from my eyes
I’m keeping all the pain inside
Now don’t you want to live with me
I’m lazy as a man can be(Note this paragraph is for the extended version)
Ohhhhh I’m wicked and I’m lazy
Ohhhhh Don’t you want to save me?
Lazy when I work, lazy on the bed
Screaming all you like but it only fades away
I’m lazy when I’m praying, lazy on the job
Got a lazy mind, lazy eye, lazy lazy fatherHard man, hard life
Hard keeping it all inside
Good times, good God
m’so lazy I almos’ stopppppTTTOhhhhh I’m wicked and I’m lazy
Ohhhhh Don’t you want to save me?
Ohhhhh I’m wicked and I’m lazy
Ohhhhh Don’t you want to save me?
[Daily log: walking, 1 km; running, 3 km]
Wallace Stevens is possibly my favorite poet. At the least, he’s in a list of “10 most important” for me. I was reading a poem called “An Ordinary Evening in New Haven” – there are places where you can find the text online (though not copy-and-pastable – what’s below, I re-typed myself – pardon any typos).
It’s a longer poem (about 23 pages), which I can’t reproduce in total, but here is the starting canto and a pair of cantos farther along that stood out for me.
An Ordinary Evening In New Haven
I
The eye’s plain version is a thing apart,
The vulgate of experience. Of this,
A few words, an and yet, and yet, and yet–As part of the never-ending meditation,
Part of the question that is a giant himself:
Of what is this house composed if not the sun,These houses, these difficult objects, dilapidate
Appearances of what appearances,
Words, lines, not meanings, not communications,Dark things without a double, after all,
Unless a second giant kills the first–
A recent imagining of reality,Much like a new resemblance of the sun,
Down-pouring, up-springing and inevitable,
A larger poem for a larger audience,As if the crude collops came together as one,
A mythological form, a festival sphere,
A great bosom, beard and being, alive with age.…
XVII
The color is almost the color of comedy,
Not quite. It comes to the point and at the point,
It fails. The strength at the centre is serious.Perhaps instead of failing it rejects
As a serious strength rejects pin-idleness.
A blank underlies the trials of device,The dominant blank, the unapproachable.
This is the mirror of the high serious:
Blue verdured into a damask’s lofty symbol,Gold easings and ouncings and fluctuations of thread
And beetling of belts and lights of general stones,
Like blessed beams from out a blessed bushOr the wasted figurations of the wastes
Of night, time and the imagination,
Saved and beholden, in a robe of rays.These fitful sayings are, also, tragedy:
The serious reflection is composed
Neither of comic nor tragic but of commonplace.XVIII
It is the window that makes it difficult
To say goody-by to the past and to live and to be
In the present state of things as, say, to paintIn the present state of painting and not the state
Of thirty years ago. It is looking out
Of the window and walking in the street and seeing,As if the eyes were the present or part of it,
As if the ears heard any shocking sound,
As if life and death were ever physical.The life and death of this carpenter depend
On a fuchsia in a can–and iridescences
Of petals that will never be realized,Things not yet true which he perceives through truth,
Or thinks he does, as he perceives the present,
Or thinks he does, a carpenter’s iridescences,Wooden, the model for astral apprentices,
A city slapped up like a chest of tools,
The eccentric exterior of which the clocks talk.XIX
The moon rose in the mind and each thing there
Picked up its radial aspect in the night,
Prostrate below the singleness of its will.…
He writes very philosophically, of course. The poem is about religion and life and death and Jesus (the carpenter). His conclusion, at the end of canto XXXI:
It is not in the premise that reality
Is a solid. It may be a shade that traverses
A dust, a force that traverses a shade.
There's a political blog called "Stop Me Before I Vote Again." It's one of those leftish blogs (cf. also the libertarianish IOZ) that rants alot about how the Democrats are too far right and that there's some kind of conspiracy (or accidental synergy) between the two main parties in the US that prevents truly leftist agendas from being pursued – that the Democratic Party's leftism is a sort of subterfuge, essentially. I read the blog, occasionally, but the quality of the writing has decreased – or else I just don't get the point – there's really only one writer there that I even find coherent, to be honest.
But one recent post by Mr Coherent (Michael J. Smith – is this a real name or pseudonym?) made a striking and noticeable point about the stridency of right-leaning talk radio in the U.S. A quote (he's talking about the show called "Focus on the Family"):
Focus on The Family is a radio product; that is, it's a commercial enterprise with a political angle. It's a show; everything on it is contrived and scripted. It's a fishing boat, and the "Fundies" — for lack of a better word — are the fish. Some come into the net, of course, and others do not.
Strelnikov [the person being criticized here] has never swum with the fish in question; he knows nothing at all about their lives and feelings and thought processes. What does a trawler tell you about fish, except that they can be caught and sold?
This is a very important point.
"What does a trawler tell you about fish, except that they can be caught and sold?" I'd like to apply the same essentially marxian logic (I'm thinking of how ideologies are deployed to preserve systems, a la Eagleton) to how we think about behemoths like Fox News – these things are not reflecting views, they're designed to draw people in with the views they express, and maybe, incidentally, they cause the "fish" to swim in certain directions they wouldn't, on their own. Let's never forget that the current "far right looniness" in the U.S. is caused mostly by people who realized they could make money off of it. The rational market is going to eventually self destruct, at this rate, it seems to me.
[Daily log: um, no]
I had fully intended to take advantage of having this Saturday off to travel down to Gwangju, this weekend. I had even declared my intention, which often serves to get me more motivated. But I have lost my motivation, once again, to travel. I have been so not-interested-in-traveling, in recent months – or even longer. The longest trip I’ve taken since moving back to Ilsan over a year ago is to Gangnam, on the south side of the Han River in Seoul. Why am I not into going places?
My journey has felt very interior, lately. I’m not sure that’s a good thing.
As far as traveling this specific weekend, to Gwangju… I suppose I’ve been feeling a little bit depressed, and it’s harder to get out and do stuff when in that state of mind, obviously. Foremost, I’ve been depressed about my health: my inability to lose the weight I’ve targetted for losing, my inability to exercise as much as I promise myself I’ll do, a sort of general feeling of poor health. My students don’t help – yesterday I had a grumpy student muttering under his breath about my 똥배 [ttong-bae] – literally, “shit-gut” but basically it’s a low-talking word for what we call beer belly. Students are often unkind.
I’m not as depressed about work as I had been feeling earlier this Spring, but I continue to despise my lack of DRIVE with respect to trying to improve my Korean. Although realistically, I am doing things, I am studying it, I am improving. But it’s so very, very slow. And take, for example, my recent resumption of my custom of posting vocabulary words alongside my blog entries, in my “-Notes for Korean-” (e.g. previous blog post). It’s pretty discouraging to go back and look at Notes from 4 years ago on this blog and see the exact same vocabulary items …talk about feeling like being on a treadmill.
Anyway, apologies to my various friends in Gwangju for the fact that I never go there to visit. To my other friends and family, apologies for blogging about utterly banal and depressing personal topics (TMI?)- but this blog is also, more and more, a kind of continuing journal of my life and state of mind.
This weekend, I am going to draw some pictures. Maybe.
There is some guy in Russia who was previously convicted of operating a Ponzi scheme during the go-go post-communist 90's (his conviction was originally delayed because he managed to get elected to parliament, which gave him immunity). Now, he's operating a ponzi scheme again – but this time, he's announced that that's what he's doing, thereby perhaps avoiding illegality – seriously, is it illegal to bilk stupid people of their money, if you tell them that's what you're doing? He argues that that makes him no different than a major bank or a casino. See the article, here. It does rather raise ethical issues, and/or connect to what would be the various appropriate liberal/libertarian/conservative stances with regard to it.
Today I had a busy day despite the start of the test prep time – one of the other teachers was absent, and so I covered some extra classes. And I tried to study, some. And I saw Stephen Colbert
-Notes for Korean-
노래하는 분수대 [no-rae-ha-neun bun-su-dae] = the "Singing Fountain" at Ilsan's Lake Park
수위 [su-wi] = janitor
경비원 [gyeong-bi-won] = building watchman, doorman
바닥 [ba-dak] = floor, ground
마루 [ma-ru] = wooden floor
천장 [cheon-jang] = ceiling
칠판 [chil-pan] = blackboard, whiteboard, chalkboard
부엌 [bu-eok] = kitchen
거실 [geo-sil] = living room
전자레인지 [jeon-ja-re-in-ji] = microwave (electric-range)
가스레인지 [ga-seu-re-in-ji] = stovetop (gas-range)
오븐 [o-beun] = oven
커튼 [keo-teun] = curtain(s)
블라인드 [beul-la-in-deu] = blinds
유리장 [yu-ri-jang] = a pane of glass
시계 [si-gye] = clock, watch
벌 [beol] = punishment
체벌 [che-beol] = corporal punishment (observation on usage: Koreans seem to preferentially use this term for what I, personally, prefer to call "hazing" – it's punishment of the body not by hitting or hurting someone, but rather by compelling them to hold positions or engage in actions which cause discomfort to their own bodies, e.g. making students stand with their arms up in the air for extended periods of time, making them hold heavy objects, making them jog or do pushups or that kind of thing – it's basically boot-camp-style discipline; I don't think this really means corporal punishment the way Americans use that term, although the literal meaning is corporal punishment [body-punish])
교실 [gyo-sil] = classroom
식당 [sik-dang] = dining room [also restaurant]
침 [chim] = bed
침실 [chim-sil] = bedroom [bed-room]
의자 [ui-ja] = chair
창문 [chang-mun] = window
문짝 [mun-jjak] = door [one panel of a multi-part door]
문 [mun] = doorway, gate
책상 [chaek-sang] = desk
책장 [chaek-jang] = bookcase (or, the pages in a book)
식탁 [sik-tak] = table
소파 [so-pa] = sofa
(진공)청소기 [(jin-gong)cheong-so-gi] = vacuum [(vacuum) clean-machine)]
드라이기 [deu-ra-i-gi] = dryer (dry-machine)
기계 [gi-gye] = machine
냉장고 [naeng-jang-go] = refrigerator, cooler
식혜 [sik-hye] = Korean rice drink, cf. horchata
생강 [saeng-gang] = ginger
도토리 [do-to-ri] = acorn (powder, flour)
도토리묵 [do-to-ri-muk] = acorn jelly
염원하다 [yeom-won-ha-da] = to want strongly, to long for
호치키스 [ho-chi-ki-seu] = stapler (really, this is a brand name = ~Hotchkiss?)
절대 않다 [jeol-dae anh-da] = (I/you/he/she) never do/es that
절대 안했어요 [jeol-dae an-haess-eo-yo] = (I/you/he/she) never did that
절대 안할 거에요 [jeol-dae an-hal geo-e-yo] = (I/you/he/she) never will do that
뛰어넘다 [ttwi-eo-nam-da] = to hop
열대 [yeol-dae] = tropical (climate)
온대 [on-dae] = temperate (climate)
냉대 [naeng-dae] = arctic (climate)
아열대 [a-yeol-dae] = subtropical (climate)
야단맛다 [ya-dan-mas-da] = to be scolded
야단치다 [ya-dan-chi-da] = to scold
사랑스러운 눈길로 [sa-rang-seu-reo-un nun-gil-lo] = with a loving gaze
X스럽다 [seu-reop-da] = to feel X about someone else
받아들이다 [bad-a-deur-i-da] = to receive, to get
수용하다 [su-yong-ha-da] = to accept, to receive
수염 [su-yeom] = whiskers
뉘우치다 [nwi-u-chi-da] = to repent a sin
한 [han] = regret (N) [this is one of many homonyms of 한]
[Daily log: walking, 4 km]
What I'm listening to right now.
Bush, "Headful of Ghosts." Lyrics:
I stand around at American weddings
I stand around for family
At my best when I'm terrorist inside
At my best when it's all meI was there when they took all the people
I was alone in a mental ravine
You breathe life when you break the walls down
You breathe life when you set me freeWhere is my head
Where are my bones
Why are my days so far from home?
Where is my head?
Where are my bones?
Can you save me from myself?Free thinking renegade social
Missed the moon, the man and now
In a slipstream of my possibilities?
I got the boat so we don't drown
These are the days that are split down the middle
No words to calm me down
Be sure that what you dream of
Won't come to hunt you outWhere is my head?
Where are my bones?
Why are my days so far from home?
Ghost man
Where is my head?
Where are my bones?
How come we get so lost?
Ghost man
Where is my head?
Where are my bones?
Can you save me from myself?
Can you save me from myself?I stand around at American weddings
I stand around for family
At my best when I'm terrorist inside
At my best when it's all meGhost man
How come we get so lost?
Ghost manWhere is my head?
Where are my bones?
Why are my days so far from home?
Ghost man
Where is my head?
Where are my bones?
How come we get so lost?
Ghost man
Where is my head?
Where are my bones?
Can you save me from myself?
Can you save me from myself?
I like this song. It makes me think of my years living in L.A. – which were rough years, in some respects. We get nostalgic about even difficult times. I am a ghost man.
Because today was the last day of regular class for the middle-schoolers (due to upcoming test-prep time, again – AGAIN!), we played some games in the “good” classes.
We were playing a version of the mafia game (a commercial version called Lupus in Tabula, Korean edition), which requires that the students dissumlate or “act” as I call it. They have to pretend they are not the ware-wolf, or pretend to know who the wolf is, etc.
After getting “killed” several times early in the game, one girl said, “I think I’m a good actor, but I think I’m not.” This was terribly funny, for some reason. It was pretty accurate, too – her confidence on how to the play the game was outstripping her “poker face.”
Anyway, it was fun. And now I will miss the middle schoolers, again.
[Daily log: walking, 3 km]
Well, not severely, but it was a bit hypocritical of me to criticize Martin’s unforgiving Yale-fication of the Korean language (as I did, originally, here), and then commit the opposite sin of failing to provide transliterations for those who might not be comfortable reading hangeul. Shame on me – I’m a lazy linguist, too.
This was brought to my attention by my friend Bob, who commented on a recent entry of mine about phenomimes and psychomimes (his comment is attached to that entry). So I have gone back and revised that entry to include transliterations using the revised SK government standard for romanization.
He also wonders about the difference between phenomimes and psychomimes. I’m a little vague on that, myself, but of those listed in the previous entry, I would hazard to say that maybe 살금살금 [san-geum-san-geum = sneakily] borders on psychomime territory, since it conveys an attitude more than a phenomenon. The difference is hardly clear, to me. But I would look to that kind of thinking as the criteria.
A Korean child’s first birthday is a special celebration, called 돌 [dol = anniversary]. They celebrate with a sort of public party similar in character and atmosphere to a wedding reception. My coworker Danny had such an event for his daughter’s first birthday, today. I started out intending to take some pictures but then I didn’t, really. Here’s a few.
A candid, fuzzy shot of Danny’s wife, and him holding their daughter, who’s dressed up in some traditional Korean clothes.
A somewhat out-of-focus picture of the child choosing a small toy gavel – there’s a tradition where the child is presented with some items to choose, which serve as a sort of prediction for her future. Choosing a gavel makes her a lawyer, maybe, or a judge or future president (?). Note the presence of an MC at left.
Here’s a much better picture of another coworker of mine interacting with his very cute 5 year old daughter. The kept making faces at each other and they looked the same. It was entertaining.
[Daily log: walking, 7 km; walking-with-a-really-extremely-heavy-box-because-I-went-shopping-and-bought-something-big, 1 km]
Korea has this consumer product called “drinking vinegar.” You dilute it with water, and enjoy the acidity of it, I guess. Lately, I’ve been drinking it.
Is this another part of my periodic flirtations with “becoming ajeossi”? [ajeossi = “uncle” AKA generic middle aged Korean man].
Well, whatever. Today is Korea’s Memorial Day holiday, but I’m going to a work-related social function.
See you later.
과부 사정 홀아비가 안다
widow circumstance widower-SUBJ confront
The widower confronts [knows] the widow’s circumstances.
I don’t really know what this means. Googletranslate, oddly, translate the whole proverb as “It never rains but it pours,” which is to say, it’s matching it proverb-to-proverb from some source, but it definitely doesn’t have a clue as to how the components therefore fit together. Maybe it’s kind of like “takes one to know one”?
Being a widower, technically, myself, I’ve got to know!
[Daily log: walking, 5 km; running, 3 km]
From a blog called Lowering the Bar:
A number of sources (including the Wall Street Journal) report that someone has used the White House’s “We the People” website to start a petition asking it to create a “Do Not Kill” list similar to the “Do Not Call” list that has been reasonably successful against telemarketers. […] The president, who you may recall won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, then personally approves names on the “kill list” for execution targeted killing by drone. […]
There may be no need to worry, of course, if you think the government will never get it wrong and target somebody who’s actually innocent. And probably that never happens. In fact, it really can’t happen, because the administration has adopted a rule defining any “military-age male” it has blown up as a terrorist unless proven innocent:
[The rule] in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent. Counterterrorism officials insist this approach is one of simple logic: people in an area of known terrorist activity, or found with a top Qaeda operative, are probably up to no good.
All perfectly legal under the Fifth Amendment, of course, which provides that no person shall be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, unless he is probably up to no good.” And under the strike-zone rule, you also don’t have to worry about killing foreign civilians, because there aren’t any, at least not near your bomb.
I voted for Obama in 2008, at least in part because of his promise not to continue the Bushcheneyian business-as-usual vis-a-vis the loss of respect for due process and rule of law. It was that same promise that got him the above-mentioned Nobel Peace Price, I presume. So much for promises.
The above encapsulates why I am going to have a VERY difficult time voting for him again in 2012, despite my terror at the Romneyian alternative. I may just forgo voting altogether, so as to avoid the guilt. I know that’s very sad. I particularly like the blogger’s re-interpretation of the 5th Amendment.
I tried to go to the whitehouse.gov website and sign the above-mentioned petition, but the site complained that it was having technical difficulties. I wondered if that was due to my choice of petittion. But then, eventually, I was able to sign the petition.
Ilsan (the name of the new, western half of the municipality of Goyang, a Seoul suburb of about one million to the northwest of the metropolis) is not, in most people’s minds, a particularly glamorous place. Nevertheless, much the way Burbank is the “workaday world” behind the glamour of Hollywood, in L.A., with its many TV and movie studios and corporate offices, Ilsan has two major television studios, and it’s hard to watch Korean TV without recognizing neighborhoods and landmarks.
In that way, I feel as if I’ve landed in a sort of “parallel-universe” version of Burbank, sometimes (which is striking only because I lived in Burbank for several years in the early 2000’s). I was reminded of this when I was jogging and was struck by a view of the MBC studios building reflected in the lake at Hosu Gongwon. Here’s a picture.
Despite it being nighttime, pictures were easy – between the full moon behind the overcast sky and the city lights, it was plenty bright enough for pictures. Also in the park, I saw a 장승 [jangseung], a sort of traditional Korean totem.
I love jangseung. I don’t know what the hanja on this one says [Update: my friend Sanghyo provides info in his comment, below – the picture above is 지하여장군 = The Underground Female General – which frankly sounds like an awesome name for a blog or rock band]. She looks pretty scary, up against the swirling night sky.
[Daily log: walking, 4 km; running, 3 km]
의성어 [ui-seong-eo] is phonomime, which is to say, an onomatopoeic word, a word that imitates a sound. 의태어 [ui-tae-eo] is phenomime, which differs in that it’s a kind of “sound symbolism” of a feeling rather than an imitative representation. I’ve written about these things before: see here. One of the most common google search terms that brings internauts to my blog randomly is “phenomimes and psychomimes.”
I’ll admit, these things fascinate me. I frequently revisit them. I found a very brief one page pdf summary of them, this morning. And there’s a chapter in Samuel E. Martin’s exhaustive and exhaustingly Yale-ified Korean grammar about them, too (p. 340~344).
I’ll reproduce some interesting vocabulary.
… some phonomimes:
추룩 추루룩 추루룩 [chu-ruk chu-ru-ruk chu-ru-ruk] = downpouringly
보글보글 [bo-geul-bo-geul] / 바글바글 [ba-geul-ba-geul] / 부글부글 [bu-geul-bu-geul] / 뽀글뽀글 [ppo-geul-ppo-geul] / 빠글빠글 [ppa-geul-ppa-geul] / 뿌글뿌글 [ppu-geul-ppu-geul] = boilingly, bubblingly
찰랑찰랑 [chal-lang-chal-lang] / 출렁출렁 [chul-leong-chul-leong] / etc. = lappingly, sloppingly
꽹구랑 꽹꽹깽 [kkwaeng-gu-rang kkwaeng-kkwaeng-kkaeng] = gongingly
… and some phenomimes:
살금살금 [sal-geum-sal-geum] = sneakily
깡충깡충 [kkang-chung-kkang-chung] = bouncily, “hoppingly” (also 깡총깡총[kkang-chong-kkang-chong])
말똥말똥 [mal-ttong-mal-ttong] / 멀뚱멀뚱 [meol-ttung-meol-ttung] = wide-eyed staringly
말랑 몰랑 물렁 [mal-lang mol-lang mul-leong] / 말캉 몰캉 물캉 [mal-kang mol-kang mul-kang] = softly / tenderly (as a texture of food)
살짝 [sal-jjak] / 설쩍 [seol-jjeok] = stealthily
싱글벙글 [sing-geul-beong-geul] = smilingly
날씬 [nal-ssin] / 늘씬[neul-ssin] = slimly, slenderly
통통 [tong-tong] / 퉁퉁 [tung-tung] = plumply
살살 [sal-sal] / 설설 [seol-seol] / 솔솔 [sol-sol] / 술술 [sul-sul] = gently, softly
싹독 [ssak-dok] / 썩둑 [seok-duk] = choppingly, snippingly
빡빡 [ppak-ppak] / 뼉뼉 [ppeok-ppeok] = crustily, tightly, narrow-mindedly
반짝 [ban-jjak] / 번쩍 [beon-jjeok] / 빤짝 [ppan-jjak] / 뻔쩍 [ppeon-jjeok] = sparklingly, twinklingly
A random picture (2010, Gwangju).
[Update (2015-10-08): I decided to create a consolidated list of examples, which I can update periodically.]
I was reading an article at the Atlantic by Robert Kaplan about Vietnam's complex, fraught relationship with China, and how that has made them much more receptive to US influence in the region, despite the legacy of the Vietnam War. Whenever I study Vietnam, I'm always struck by the cultural and political similarities with Korea.
One phrase that he uses to describe the millenia-long influence of China on its southern neighbor is: "the narcissism of small differences." This made me laugh, because it's so precisely the sort of phrase that could be applied to the interesting cultural dynamics at play between Korea and China, too, or between Korea and Japan, or between North Korea and South Korea, for that matter. And I suppose it could apply to most any cultural interaction between related neighbors, e.g. Canada and the U.S., too. That being said, although it's a thought-provoking phrase, I don't actually think it conveys much information. It's more poetry than political analysis.
I spent the day today reading and cleaning my fridge. Not at the same time. And I tried to study a little bit, too. I'm still feeling very distressed and annoyed with my knowledge that I need to reduce my blood pressure, and I'm manifesting a definite lack of self-discipline in tackling it – step one: I ate too much today. It was healthy food, mostly… but it was too much. Pasta and stuff. Sigh.
-Notes for Korean-
[I'm resurrecting this "feature" of my blog from 2008/2009 – I think it helps me to organize my study efforts. I'm not sure why I ever stopped doing it, except that there have been periods when I've given up studying Korean.]
수영하다 = to swim (humans)
헤엄하다 = to swim (animals/fish)
모엄 = adventure
병아리 = chick (i.e. baby chicken)
시냇가 = stream, rivulet
건너다 = to cross
뛰다 = to run
마당 = yard
날다 = to fly
백설기 = a style of tteok that has a texture that resembles, in my mind, polenta
붐에 안다 = hug closely
알아차리다 = to realize (to come to know…) (so, 알아치리지 못했구나 = I didn't realize… )
가리키다 = to point
영리하다 = to be clever, to be smart
[Daily log: what, me exercise?]
How is it at all possible that I reached the age of 46 without realizing that there are pedants out there who like to distinguish between the concepts of acronym (a pronounciable grouping of first letters and sounds, e.g. NASA) and initialism (an unpronounciable grouping of first letters, e.g. FBI)? And to think that I was a literature major!
According to the wiktionary, there are 3 meanings for acronym:
1. An abbreviation formed by (usually initial) letters taken from a word or series of words, that is itself pronounced as a word, such as RAM, radar, or scuba; sometimes contrasted with initialism.
2. A pronounceable word formed from the beginnings (letter or syllable) of other words and thus representing the phrase so formed, e.g. Benelux = the countries Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg considered as a political or economic whole.
3. Any abbreviation so formed, regardless of pronunciation, such as TNT, IBM, or XML.
I always, always thought that definition 3 was the main definition. For me, it was the only definition. But a usage note says, “The third sense is often criticized by commentators who prefer the term initialism for abbreviations that are not pronounced like an ordinary word.” So it turns out that these anonymous commentators would have judged me to be wrong, all these years.
My absolute favorite acronym, therefore, turns out to actually be an initialism (unless you are good at pronouncing the /tl/ cluster, as in the Nahuatl language): TLA = three-letter acronym. Properly speaking, it should instead be TLI = three-letter initialism. Somehow, it seems less compelling, that way. But that’s just because it shakes up my long-held habit. I’ll try to adapt.
Here’s a lingering question, however. Some potential acronyms are nevertheless typically “pronounced” as initialisms. Anyone could say /ukla/ for UCLA, if they wanted (and, in fact, Spanish speakers generally do exactly that, for example), but people typically spell it out in English, U.C.L.A. So is it an acronym or an initialism?
What I’m listening to right now.
Cat Stevens (AKA Yusuf Islam), “My Lady d’Arbanville.” He looks so very 70’s in that video.
But I’ve been realizing, when I heard it came around on the mp3 shuffle… Cat Stevens has been more consistently a part of my “life soundtrack” than any other composer or singer in my life – he was part of my parents’ soundtrack when I was child growing up, he was a major component of my own listening, as an adolescent, and unlike other musical manias and fads I’ve had, he’s always been on the short rotation. If I had to guess a single album that I’ve listened to more times than any other, it would almost undoubtedly be Mona Bone Jakon (the disturbing origin of this album title is slightly NSFW – interestingly, this latter term is an acronym [pardon me, initialism] which was being written about by Alan Jacobs at the Atlantic wherein I first learned of this aforementioned acronym/initialism distinction – thus, full circle).
I was reading the third story in my first grade A1 reader. It’s about a little baby chick trying to cross a stream. The chick gets advice from a duck (swim!), a rabbit (hop across!), a bee (fly!), but she’s very sad because she can’t do these things. And then the mama hen comes along and says: just walk across the bridge!
Oh! There’s a bridge… The chick says, “이렇게 쉬운 걸 가지고…” […like that, it’s easy].
For some reason, I found this intensely funny. What a stupid chicken. Cute story.
[Daily log: walking, 7 km]
웃는 낯에 침 뱉으랴
smiling visage-AT spit spit-PROP
Shall we spit at a smiling face?
This is basically a proverb saying that someone is being ungrateful. It’s in an ironical propositive verb form of some kind, at least as best I can tell from my grammar.
Let’s be grateful, then.
I felt some tweegret when I ran across this tweet, by someone named Dan K. Here’s what he said:
History of the universe: Hydrogen is a light, odorless gas, which, given enough time, turns into people and ends up thinking about itself.
Now that it’s June, I don’t feel different than I did yesterday. That is a pointless observation. But it’s just hydrogen, right?
What I’m listening to right now.
Woven Hand, “Dirty Blue.” Interesting video, too.
Lyrics.
This fear is only the beginning
All for the loving hand
Yes I smile and I agree
It is a good night to shiver
A good tongue might make it right
All I’ve said above a whisper
There is a sorrow to be desired
To be sorrow’s desire
There is a sorrow to be desired
To be sorrow’s desire
What they say is true
It is a dirty blue
This color around you
You’re curled up warm
In your own little corner of Sodom
Did you agree to believe
This fall has no bottom
There is a sorrow to be desired
To be sorrow’s desire
There is a sorrow to be desired
To be sorrow’s desire
All we move by the book of numbers
I’m held together by string
I hear not the voices of others
The bells of Leuven ring
Fear not the faces of brothers
And I, I’ve come apart it seems
I see not the faces are covered
And I, I’m in your amber ring
Your amber ring…
What they say is true
It is a dirty blue
This color around you
There is a sorrow to be desired
To be sorrow’s desire
There is a sorrow to be desired
To be sorrow’s desire
[Daily log: walking, 4 km; running, 3 km]
