The state of my birth. The governor of my childhood, and the once again governor: Jerry Brown.
The Dead Kennedys were the first band I ever saw live. I was 16, in Boston on my own. It was a transformative experience.
What I’m listening to right now.
Dead Kennedys, “California Uber Alles.”
Lyrics.
I am Governor Jerry Brown
My aura smiles
And never frowns
Soon I will be president…
Carter Power will soon go away
I will be Fuhrer one day
I will command all of you
Your kids will meditate in school
Your kids will meditate in school!
[Chorus:]
California Uber Alles
California Uber Alles
Uber Alles California
Uber Alles California
Zen fascists will control you
100% natural
You will jog for the master race
And always wear the happy face
Close your eyes, can’t happen here
Big Bro’ on white horse is near
The hippies won’t come back you say
Mellow out or you will pay
Mellow out or you will pay!
[Chorus]
Now it is 1984
Knock-knock at your front door
It’s the suede/denim secret police
They have come for your uncool niece
Come quietly to the camp
You’d look nice as a drawstring lamp
Don’t you worry, it’s only a shower
For your clothes here’s a pretty flower.
DIE on organic poison gas
Serpent’s egg’s already hatched
You will croak, you little clown
When you mess with President Brown
When you mess with President Brown
I have a student Mingyu who wrote this in his recent diary essay book.
I had a stomachache because I ate pizza, banana, lemon and bread. In fact I had a stomachache from yesterday when I went to math academy but I was very feel sick at the stomachache. So so I went to bathroom and I threw up all I had eaten. I went home I don't eat anything and I sleep.
I need to discuss the concepts of "over-sharing" and "TMI."
It’s Thanksgiving in America. So I have to listen to this song. It’s an important Thanksgiving tradition. Listen, too, and you will understand me better, knowing that I once had this song memorized.
I was driving in Minnesota snowstorm. Then the guy in the car in front of me, who I recognized as a coworker from Karma, was recruited by some construction workers to get out of his car and wave a green light up and down beside the highway, directing traffic.
This was weird – I was thinking that, even inside the dream. 'Is that safe or legal, recruiting random drivers to work at a construction site in a snowstorm?' I ponder, as my car devolves into a slow skid on the snowy, icy road, nearly knocking the man down. This emphasizes my point. But I roll down my window and wave to him, cheerily.
After driving some more, I show up at the meeting I'm going to. It's at work. That guy who got recruited to wave the green light shows up after me, covered in ice and snow, but he has a girlfriend who looks like a Korean pop star.
The meeting is in Korean. But my long-time-ago boss, Mary (I don't even remember her last name) from when I taught high school in New Jersey is conducting the meeting. And one of my coworkers, who was the head of the Spanish department at Moorestown, was looking around confused, because the meeting was being held in Korean. According to Mary (who has been speaking flawless Korean), the topic of the meeting was a debate contest we were supposed to participate in.
"Participate in?" I asked. "I thought we were the teachers."
One of the other teachers muttered something in Korean to the extent of, 'why does he speak English, it's annoying.'
Mirarte solo en mi ansiedad espero, solo a mirarte en mi ansiedad aspiro, y más me muero cuanto más te miro, …y más te miro cuanto más me muero.
El tiempo, pasa por demás ligero, lloro su raudo, turbulento giro, y más te quiero cuanto más suspiro, y más suspiro cuanto más te quiero.
Deja a tu talle encadenar mi brazo, y, al blando son con que nos brinda el remo, la mar surquemos en estrecho lazo.
Ni temo al viento ni a las ondas temo, que más me quemo cuanto más te abrazo, y más te abrazo cuanto más me quemo.
– Salvador Rueda.
Es poesía sencilla pero muy fuerte. También me gusta esta cita del mismo autor:
Aprendí administración de las hormigas; música, oyendo los aguaceros; escultura buscando parecido a los seres en las líneas de las rocas; color, en la luz; poesía, en toda la naturaleza.
We had a debate yesterday in my iBT class (mostly 6th graders with two 5th graders) about a topic that comes up now and then on this blog: is downloading music without permission wrong? That question was the basis of our proposition. Often, when I have an uneven number of students, I participate in the debate myself, on one side or the other. This provides modelling of debate language for the students and they seem to find it entertaining. I don't think my performance as the last CON team speaker in this debate was particularly good, though.
Here is the debate.
I have been sending debate speech recordings to the students' parents, lately, too. This is proving rather popular. I think the parents like seeing how their kids are doing.
Students pass notes. This seems to be almost universal across cultures – at least cultures with literacy. Sometimes my students write notes on tiny scraps of paper and wad them up and throw them across to whomever they’re trying to communicate with. If they get caught, they’re getting caught throwing paper (a minor offense, and unembarrassing) rather than passing notes (a potentially more hazardous infraction, depending on what’s in the note).
When I catch students passing notes, I will intercept the little balls of paper. This makes them worried, but I rarely do anything with the paper except perhaps study them as linguistic objects. You see, one can learn interesting bits of Korean Language for a note where you understand the social context.
I have a group of 6th graders that recently seem to have discovered the opposite sex. And they are always joking and blushing and showing off and giggling and doing what awkward adolescents will do. And they write and pass notes, too. I intercepted a note a while back and glanced at it after class and laughed at it, and then I put it on my desk and forgot about it. I rediscovered it today. The note said, in tiny barely legible handwriting, “너 ~~~ 좋아하지?” (Do you like ~~~? – where ~~~ is someone’s name, best left unuttered on the internet in unicode).
It was written by girl A, to boy B, about other girl C.
My observation? Duh. Boy B sits and stares at girl C, moon-eyed. It’s all very cute.
This book review is by Jeongyeol, 6th grade. He is of intermediate ability, but atrocious attitude. I transcribe it exactly as written, with no corrections.
This book is very bad Because many English I hate This book This book have many cheese. This book piature is very dirty This book people is very very smart mouse I hate mouse I hate this book Geronimo stilton is very very stupied This book piature is very crazy I upset!
Such a compelling review. Now I most definitely want to read the book.
It is his only asset. He is also a flower farmer, a vegetarian and an open atheist. Would this be possible in Mexico or the US or South Korea? Um, no. Someday, I want to go back to Uruguay.
“Does this planet have enough resources so seven or eight billion can
have the same level of consumption and waste that today is seen in rich
societies? It is this level of hyper-consumption that is harming our
planet.” – José Mujica
So. After more than five years in Korea, I did something new today: I used an entirely Korean website to purchase something using my cellphone account. I suspect I’m a bit behind the curve on this. The reason I’m behind the curve has to do with my being one of those personalities that actually reads the fine print on online purchase agreements, combined infelicitously with the fact that there’s a hell of a lot of fine print associated with making purchases online in Korea – in Korean, of course, about which I have some degree of perfectionistic anxiety.
So to do this online commerce thing, I have to break through some barriers. First, I have to just relax and keep hitting the “확인” [hwagin = continue] and “동의” [dongui = agree] buttons obliviously. Second, I have to use Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (Korean e-commerce is still hogtied by some very old regulations that keep it stuck in an unhappy marriage with ActiveX – 15 years ago they were very forward-looking and progressive and enabled Korea to bootstrap its current internet success story, but now they are quite annoying). Third, I have to have something I really want to buy.
This last barrier was surmounted because I’ve been listening to more and more Korean music and feeling less and less comforatble with my piratical ways. For my non-Korean music, I’ve been using Amazon’s mp3 store, which now works from Korea (it didn’t used to) – my account is tied to my US credit card. But for Korean music, Amazon is ill-stocked. And I’ve been put off by the lack of finding a comfortable English-option website whereat to download music legally, for pay. They simply don’t exist, in my experience. You’ve got to break down and pretend to be a Korean. Download it using IE, using “phone cash” from your cellphone account.
So that’s what I did. And now I’m the proud owner of an mp3 track that cost me… lemme see… about 138 won, including taxes. That’s 13 cents. 대박 [daebak ~= kewl].
The video, by the way, is… interesting. It all goes along swimmingly, entirely compliant to K-pop cultural norms, until the last moment, when… er… what’s going on there? Any thoughts, anyone? Is Korean pop taking a first step out of the closet? Or would that be an overdetermined reading for what is, essentially, intended to be a bromance?
기지도 못하면서 뛰려고한다 crawl-PRENEG-TOO cannot-do-IF run-TRY-PRES [Someone] tries to run if [he/she] cannot crawl first.
“Trying to run before you can walk.” Or, maybe, this is kind of like the proverbial “Putting the cart before the horse.” This seems to happen a lot in Korea. They need to remember this proverb when running a business. Just a thought. I slept badly last night. Good thing today is Sunday. I plan to be very lazy today – I have substantial skills in this area.
I sat and watched a 4 hour movie basically straight through, this evening. I’m a little bit hesitant to recommend this movie in this venue – it was most definitely NSFW, if you catch my drift.
But it was epic, and fascinating. It was half Cervantes, half William S. Burroughs, and executed like a live-action anime cartoon. If you can stomach strong sexual content (perversions!), vast amounts of blood and gore (homage to Kill Bill), insults to religion and capitalism galore, Lacanian psychosexual philosophizing and sadomasochistic parenting … well, then… if you can stomach those things, then I heartily recommend: Love Exposure (愛のむきだし [ai no mukidashi]).
It was really about 4 or 5 different movies. I would have been interested to watch any of them, though for different reasons. It’s not a a very optimistic view of human nature, frankly, despite the “love-triumphs” ending. The significant quote that runs thematically through movie is 1 Corinthians 13:
If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
But don’t misunderstand – it’s not at all clear that the message is “pro-Christian.” Or even pro-Love. I didn’t come away with that impression. And, as a product of 99% non-Christian Japan, that’s understandable. It’s messing with the symbolism, as a lot of Japanese pop culture does, but without any deference or loyalty or, for that matter, sincerity. But just because a movie is contrived and insincere doesn’t mean it can’t be a great work of art. It’s horribly contrived, and complicatedly switches between a kind of plausible emotional realism and a two-dimensional, adolescent, comic-book view of the world. Certainly, it is the case that Love Never Ends, if by love, you mean “lust” and by never ends you mean rape and bloody murder. For all that, the Corinthians quote is nevertheless perfect.
So much for trying to review it.
I liked the soundtrack, too.
What I’m listening to right now.
[UPDATE 2018-01-23: The old youtube video has disappeared from the internet. Probably gobbled up by the copyright police. But I like the song. So I found a “cover” of the song by another artist. That’s the current video embedded.]
ゆらゆら帝国 [Yurayurateikoku], “空洞です” [kūdōdesu = Hollow Me]. The lyrics:
ぼくの心をあなたは奪い去った Boku no kokoro o anata wa ubai satta 俺は空洞 でかい空洞 Ore wa kūdō dekai kūdō 全て残らずあなたは奪い去った Subete nokorazu anata wa ubai satta 俺は空洞 面白い Ore wa kūdō omoshiroi バカな子どもが ふざけて駆け抜ける Bakana kodomo ga fuzakete kakenukeru は空洞 でかい空洞 Ore wa kūdō dekai kūdō いいよ くぐりぬけてみな 穴の中 Ī yo kugurinukete mina ana no naka どうぞ 空洞 Dōzo kūdō
なぜか町には大事なものがない Naze ka machi ni wa daijina mono ga nai それはムード 甘いムード Sore wa mūdo amai mūdo 意味を求めて無意味なものがない Irikunda roji de anata ni deaitai それはムード とろけそうな Sore wa mūdo toroke-sō na 入り組んだ路地であなたに出会いたい Irikunda roji de anata ni deaitai それはムード 甘いムード Sore wa mūdo amai mūdo 誰か 味見をしてみな 踊りたい Dare ka ajimi o shite mina odoritai さあどうぞ ムード Sā dōzo mūdo
ぼくの心をあなたは奪い去った Boku no kokoro o anata wa ubai satta 俺は空洞 でかい空洞 Ore wa kūdō dekai kūdō 全て残らずあなたは奪い去った Subete nokorazu anata wa ubai satta 俺は空洞 面白い Ore wa kūdō omoshiroi バカな子どもが ふざけて駆け抜ける Bakana kodomo ga fuzakete kakenukeru 俺は空洞 でかい空洞 Ore wa kūdō dekai kūdō いいよ くぐりぬけてみな 穴の中 Ī yo kugurinukete mina ana no naka さあどうぞ 空洞 Sā dōzo kūdō 空洞 Kūdō 空洞 Kūdō 空洞 Kūdō 空洞 Kūdō
Last night, I gave a presentation to the parents of the kids who will be moving up from elementary (6th grade) to middle school (7th grade) at the new school year – which starts in March in Korea. The curriculum undergoes major changes, both in public school and in hagwon. So the hagwon does a lot of orientation for parents of kids that move up. This is part of that. Curt spoke for over 2 hours. My bit was about 15 minutes. I’m speaking in a style that hopefully is understandable to at least a plurality of parents – slow, clearly enunciated – but there are no doubt parents that aren’t understanding my English.
In the presentation, I’m talking about my debate program – I’m trying to sell it, essentially. There is so much focus on exam-prep at the middle-school level, that a lot of the parents don’t see the benefit of a debate program or even of building speaking skills in general – there’s no speaking component to the national English exam, after all.
The video of the 3 kids’ before-and-after debating skills that I’m presenting is here, if you’re interested to look at it.
“The arts are not just a nice thing to have or to do if there is free time or if one can afford it. Rather, paintings and poetry, music and fashion, design and dialogue, they all define who we are as a people and provide an account of our history for the next generation.” – Michelle Obama.
A while back, a friend pointed me to a website called "Six Sentences," where people write six-sentence-long stories. This appeals to me. It appeals to me a lot, actually. I may even try writing an entry for the website, sometime. Certainly, brevity has more than once been not just an accidental but a genuinely intentional feature of This Here Blog Thingy™. So at some point, don't be shocked if all my entries turn into six-sentence-long essays – kind of like that mania I got for a while one time when I posted single-word facebook statuses every day for a few months.
궁하면 통한다 be-at-wit’s-end-WHEN pass-through-PRES When at wit’s end [something] comes through. “There is always a way out.” I think this is true. There are, in fact, so many ways out of any bad situation.
I went into the classroom at nearly 10 pm, and Jeongjae and Donghun were still in there, studying for some vocabulary quiz, presumably. But Jeongjae was looking at his math book.
“You guys are still here?” I asked.
“Yeaaasss,” intoned Jeongjae in that laconic voice of his.
I pointed at his math book. “That doesn’t look like English,” I observed.
He glared down at the offending text as if it had suddenly appeared on his desk unexpectedly. He pondered his predicament for only a moment.
“Ohhh. but Teacher! There is x! X is English.”
“Yes, I think that’s English,” his friend agreed.
I couldn’t really argue. Though maybe “x” is more Latin, than English, in a math problem. But, well… who was I to argue? (Note that the image is not Jeongjae’s math problem – just a random image of a math problem in Korean with an ‘x’ in it that I grabbed out of the intertubes. I’m not sure Korean 7th graders are doing precalculus.)
The Dirt Band (AKA The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band), "Fish Song." This song is from their album All the Good Times. I had a hard time finding a youtube of it – they must be in the copyright-police-state crowd – they or their publishers / labels. I found a live version that's not too far different from the studio version I know so well, which is what's embedded above. It's a good song.
Sat here by this stony brook until the Grey day turned to dust When up swam a fish with a children's book thought that I was lost He was on his way to the salmon hop, that's where they go to breed Saw me sitting on this log and thought I'd like to read
The night was cloudy but the moon he found a hole He said that he felt bad for me cause I had no place to go
Why aren't you at the harvest ball with some sweet young gal You just sit like a bump on a log and call that fish your pal
Well, I told him I was an orphan, lived here all alone But many people have often tried to catch and take me home They never caught me
Thought that I was a hiding, call this log my home But the fish and the moon and a sweet young gal All want me for their own
The night was cloudy but the moon he found a hole He said that he felt bad for me cause I had no place to go
So I met that girl at the harvest ball, she took me to her room While I slept in children's dreams, the fish ran away with the moon The fish ran away with the moon The fish ran away with the moon
The Main Cause of Poetry
I think the sky is the main cause
of poetry, because sometimes
there is a color or a cloud
and a picture would be useless.
I see the sky that way today.
And I see the leaves on the trees
have so many colors that I
decide to try to write this poem.
I came back into the classroom on the 3rd floor, only to find Junbeom, a 6th grader, sitting alone, on the floor, under a desk. He had finished his homework – I didn’t feel upset. But I was curious.
“Why are you sitting there?” I asked.
“I’m eating,” he said.
“What are you eating?”
“오징어 땅콩,” he explained, sheepishly. He held up the package. Literally, this phrase, ojingeo ttangkong means, roughly, “squid nuts.” They are apparently squid-and-peanut-flavored rice-puffs.
그만해요 해요. 그만해요 해요
그만해요 해요. 그만해요 해요
그만해요 해요. 그만해요 Oh
나에게 실수인줄 몰라
넌 항상 맨날 했던 행동을
또 아무렇지 않은 듯이 해
이렇게 의미 없는 시간 하루하루 지나
되돌릴 수도 바꿀 수도 없을 만큼 지나
더 해줄 말도 없는데 자꾸 붙잡지 좀 마
이젠 너와 나는 it’s over now
자꾸만 이렇게 돼 또 자꾸만 반복이 돼
그만해 이제 그만해 이제
지겨워 이런 시간 또 지겨워 이런 사랑
그만해 이제 더 이상 필요 없어 너와 나는
그만해요 해요. 그만해요 해요
그만해요 해요. 그만해요 Oh
몇 번째 싸움인지 몰라 왜 그런지 몰라
우리 서로가 뭘 했는지 기억도 안나
이렇게 의미 없는 만남 한 번 두 번 지나
설레임 없이 생각 없이 또 하루가 지나가
더 웃을 일도 없는데 자꾸 연락하지마
이제 너와 나는 it’s over now
자꾸만 이렇게 돼 또 자꾸만 반복이 돼
그만해 이제 그만해 이제
지겨워 이런 시간 또 지겨워 이런 사랑
그만해 이제 더 이상 필요 없어 너와 나는
지금은 아닐거야 지날거야
시간이 더 지나면 괜찮아 질거야 오
몇 번을 생각해도 이건 아냐
이젠 그만해 더는 못해 너와 나는
it’s over now
자꾸만 이렇게 돼 또 자꾸만 반복이 돼
그만해 이제 그만해 이제
지겨워 이런 시간 또 지겨워 이런 사랑
그만해 이제 더 이상 필요 없어 너와 나는
그만해요 해요. 그만해요 해요
그만해요 해요. 그만해요 Oh
구르는돌에는 이끼가 끼지 않는다 roll-over-PRESPART stone-LOC-TOPIC moss-SUBJ gather-PRENEG not-PRES Moss doesn’t gather on a rolling stone.
“No moss gathers on a rolling stone.” Wow – this proverb is such a close translation that I suspect it’s a translation. I thought that perhaps it was biblical, but it’s apparently not – it’s attributed to Roman writer (and proto-stand-up-comic) Publius Syrus. Or is it self-evident enough that it evolved separately in the sinosphere (China/Korea/etc.)?
My old town, where I worked for one year, 2010-11, was in the news on CNN. Really.
Why? Because the humongous nuclear power plant there has cracks in it. Which some inspectors found alarming.
Ah, Hongnong. I took the picture at right during a hike on the hill behind the town in May, 2010.
What I’m listening to right now.
G-DRAGON, 크레용 [crayon]. Korean rap/hiphop (kraphiphop?) at its best. 가사:
GET YOUR CRAYON
GET YOUR CRAYON
머리 어깨 무릎 발
swag check swag check
머리 어깨 무릎 발
swag check swag check
아직도 꿀리지 않아 yes I’m a pretty boy
난 날아다녀 so fly 날라리 boy
월화수목금토일 난 바빠
오빠 나빠 Baaaad boy
I’m a G to the D Gold N Diamonds boy
누가 아니래 U know I beez that
오늘의 DJ 나는 철이 너는 미애
아가씨 아가씨 난 순결한 지용씨
이리 와봐요 귀요미 네 남자친구는 지못미
넌 마치 닮았지 내 이상형 so give me some
김태희와 김희선 oh my god 전지현
Why so serious?
Get your crayon Get your crayon
Get your cray Get your crayon
Get your crayon Get your crayon
Get your cray Get your
Why so serious?
Come on girls Come on boys
Come on come on
Get your crayon crayon
Come on girls Come on boys
Come on come on
Get your crayon crayon
머리 어깨 무릎 발 swag
내 카드는 BLACK 무한대로 싹 긁어버려
이 노랜 CRACK 무한궤도 확 돌려버려
감 떨어진 분들께 난 한 그루 감나무
콧대 높은 분들께 기죽지 않는 깡다구
어중이건 떠중이건 편견 없이 CRAYON
잘 나가던 망나니건 차별 없이 CRAYON
하나 둘 three four 왔다 갔다 돌리고
차분하게 slow it down
심심하면 좀 더 빠르게 달려라
서울 대전 대구 부산 손뼉을 치면서
노래를 부르며 즐겁게 같이 춤을 춰
링가링가링 파트너 바꿔
머리 어깨 무릎 발
무릎 발 몸을 흔들어 ROCK
Why so serious?
Get your crayon Get your crayon
Get your cray Get your crayon
Get your crayon Get your crayon
Get your cray Get your
Why so serious?
Come on girls Come on boys
Come on come on
Get your crayon crayon
Come on girls Come on boys
Come on come on
Get your crayon crayon
Get your crayon crayon
Get your Get Get Get Get … crayon
Come on girls Come on boys
Come on Come on Come on Come on
Come on girls Come on boys
Come on Come on Come on Come on
머리 어깨 무릎 발 swag
Everyone knows I have a slightly morbid interest in our neighbors-to-the-north. I mean, to the north of Ilsan, here – not to the north of the US. I stumbled across a flickr photo-stream with lots of really bleak, desolate pictures of the railroad trip between Pyeongyang and Uiju. Interestingly, this Uiju is the same Uiju referenced in the name “Gyeongui Line” (as in railroad line) which means “Gyeong[capital-and-]Ui[ju]” – the same way that a name like “B&O Railroad” references the endpoints of the original railroad (Baltimore and Ohio). Gyeongui is now the name for the high-speed commuter-rail line that runs right through Ilsan, about a block from my work. It doesn’t make it to Uiju nowadays, though.
I am really fascinated to look at this guy’s pictures – they’re not the standard “handler-mediated” photography that emerges from North Korea.
Below, here’s a map of the original Gyeongui line (and Gyeongbu line) that connected Busan with Uiju through Seoul, along the length of Korea, constructed over 100 years ago (note the map is in Japanese, who were the soon-to-be-dominant colonial power that constructed the railroad).
According to an article in the Korean Herald, South Korea posted its first-ever "cultural trade surplus." This is a very interesting perspective. It's interesting to think about. It's interesting that Koreans are interested in it. They take the idea of being successful cultrual imperialists quite seriously, as a component of their "arrival" in the world as a "developed" country.
The idea, basically: Korea now exports more cultural stuff (books, movies, music, etc.) than it imports, on a dollar-value basis. There aren't many countries that do this – the US is the juggernaut, of course; there's probably some others: France, I suspect, and Japan, and Italy. I'd bet on maybe Egypt, actually, and maybe Brazil. But these are just guesses. Completely wild guesses. I'm too lazy to research it. But it's interesting, anyway.
I don’t remember the dream very clearly. It was one of my “university” dreams, with the added twist of my father showing up in the Model A – that is happening a lot in my dreams, because of my worry and preoccupation with my dad, lately. In my “university” dreams, I’m at the University (…of Minnesota, …of Pennsylvania, …of Mexico, …of Southern Chile – one of the various universities where I have spent far too much time in my life), and I’m trying to register for a class that either doesn’t exist or is for some bureaucratic reason is inaccessible – pretty common vaguely Kafkaian themes.
My dad showed up, and was giving me unsolicited (and frankly not very useful) advice. Then Michelle showed up, and she was telling me not to study so much. Then I was standing in line for some class registration, except all the other people standing in line were Korean farmers. So, I was beginning to suspect I was in the wrong line, when my father drove by in the Model A – with my aunt Freda and the Korean dictator Park Chung-Hee (assassinated 1979) riding with him – and that somehow confirmed I was in the wrong line.
So I walked off, looking for the right line. And suddenly I was in a lecture hall of the class I had so desperately been wanting to register for. I felt a warm, happy glow of bureaucratic conquest. Professor Lopez (University of Pennsylvania) was lecturing, but he was speaking English, not Spanish, and the topic was philosophy, not 19th century Spanish Literature (although you could see the connection, probably). And he looked around the lecture hall, and looked at me very directly and pointedly.
“Epistemic closure… what is this? What is epistemic closure?” he asked, rhetorically. And continued, “This dream you’re dreaming is an example of epistemic closure.“
And I woke up.
Here’s picture I took from inside the “closet” on the fourth floor at work, yesterday morning.
Is it sad that the best view at work is from inside the closet? Perhaps more importantly, what was I doing in the closet with a camera, anyway? These are deep mysteries of the human mind.
I watched a movie called 아저씨 [ajeossi = literally, “uncle” but used as “Hey, Mister” also meaning any Korean man of a certain age beyond youth, so, colloquially, “old dude” as a teenager or child would mean it] – the English title of the movie is “The Man From Nowhere.” In line with my typical practice, I won’t try to “review” it here – I will only say that I enjoyed it and recommend it. It’s a pretty standard, excessively violent action flick with a heart-string-tugging ending. Thematically, it’s similar to “Man On Fire” (which is one of my favorites of the genre).
The state of my birth. The governor of my childhood, and the once again governor: Jerry Brown.
