Where Have You Been?

Hello, readers.

You've asked an excellent question.

Here's your answer.

I went on a trip. It began on the east coast of Korea, in the town of Gangneung. I visited two beaches called Gyeongpo and Jeongdongjin. These beaches are famous for their sunrises because they are on the east coast and you know how it is with the east and sunrises. It was not disappointing. On my first morning in Gyeongpo (which is where I stayed), I woke up at 5:30 and went to the beach and swam as the sun rose. Eventually the lifeguards came and said it was too early to swim but it was already too late because I was swimming back to shore.

One woman kept dunking another woman in the ocean. I took pictures.

Other things in Gyeongpo include a Thomas Edison museum. I do not know why there is a Thomas Edison on the east coast of Korea, but there is. It was focused on the miraculousness of light, sound, and picture which Edison, with his light bulb, gramophone, and motion picture cameras, helped to make more conveniently and controllably miraculous. It was a fun museum. There was an exhibit of light fixtures from across the decades, including ones designed to impress people at museums and world fairs. An attendant flicked a switch and they went flashy. They also played really old sound canisters and gramophones, with records from the twenties and canisters from when they used canisters.

It exists.

One thing I learned was that it was smart to hang around when a Korean tour group came into an exhibit because usually the tour guide would flick a switch or play music.

Another thing there was a hall of TVs from the very first tubular wonder on up till the late 80s. This was very nostalgic and profound. TV has pretty much been the most important thing ever.

If you watch TVs long enough, the TVs will watch you.

And now let's try one of these breaky things. If you'd like to keep reading, click the breaky thing now.

Sky Blue Sky

Futurisms

Hello, readers.

Summer school has begun this week, which reminds me of that one Mark Harmon movie with the girl from Melrose Place. It was called, Summer School. There was a scene where Mark Harmon teaches the kids how to write a letter of complaint to a sunglasses company. I mention this because it's the only scene I remember from that noble piece of entertainment.

In other news, the future, as has been pointed out, either doesn't exist, has already existed, or is, in fact, now.

Evidence for the nowness of the future is these things three.

Tor.com has decided that it's not enough to offer their stories online for free, they must make them available "on a bunch of e-book platforms...for 99 cents each."

Amazon notes that e-books, in recent months, have out-sold hardbacks. Of note, hardbacks cost around $25 and up. E-books cost $9.99. Also, of note, hardbacks have mass, and so, weigh down backpacks and airplanes. E-books are, of course, imaginary, and so much lighter.

Australia has decided the best way to cool down is to drill 3,000 meters into the earth, pump down water, bring it back hot, and then use an "absorption chiller" to cool down the water. If that doesn't make sense to you, readers, I'm afraid you must be stuck in the past--that magical made-up land where sense was make-able.

Happy Today, readers.

ttfn.

Umbrellas

Hello, readers.

Life in Seoul is very modular. When people work, they work. Often from 7 a.m. until 7, or 8, or 9, or 10 p.m. When they drink, they drink. Often from 7, or 8, or 9, or 10 p.m., until it's time to make breakfast. And, when they cheer for their soccer team, they put on ponchos and sit in the rain for six hours and cheer.



Oh, yes, and when it rains, it rains.

Which means umbrella culture. Umbrella culture is a small, often overlooked culture that exists in many cities. It includes those humans in D.C., or New York, who, whenever it rains, appear from nowhere--grates? dumpsters? New Jersey?--with bundles of sticks and cloth they call umbrellas. These umbrellas usually cost anywhere from $3 to $10 dollars and will usually last you through the rest of the day, so long as you don't encounter any stiff breezes.

It includes the people who carry umbrellas when it rains, but never open them. Presumably to show their better than everyone else.

In Seoul, umbrella culture is bright and pragmatic. There are pink, blue, clear, and rainbow umbrellas. There are umbrellas with folk tale characters, comic newsprint, and snow flakes. Some umbrellas are giant, some small, some are shaped as bells, and some are shaped as single sheets of paper. These last seem a fairly ineffective design, but I've seen many a sparkly woman, or well-dressed man, using them.



Seoul also has these ingenious devices in subway stations and stores, wherein you stick your umbrella and yank it out, and *poof*, your umbrella is dry, or, well, it's inside a plastic bag and so to the outside world, it's dry. Inside, of course, it's growing mold.


That woman has a cool hat.


ttfn, readers.

That Vampire Movie

Hello, readers.

This week a foreign movie about vampires premiered in Seoul. It included a lot of romance, teenagers, sparkling, German accents, and soccer. A lot of soccer, actually. German, too.

It looked like this. It was called Wild Soccer Bunch 5, and was part of the Seoul International Youth Film Festival. The plot concerns a group of seemingly supernaturally good soccer playing kids who happen, as these things do, to run into a group of vampires who not only possess a terrifying amount of unrestrained sexuality, but are also pretty good at soccer.

The vampires steal one of the soccer bunch and so the soccer bunch go in search. Their search lasts ten months, or five minutes, depending on how you measure these things. During those ten months a song plays which describes their search and posits that only the wind truly knows you are alive. The wind never really gets mentioned again after this.

Eventually, the humans and vampires play soccer, and, well, I won't spoil who wins.

I will spoil that the humans ride motorcycles, that the vampires count among their number a set of twins named Terry and Mary, and that, the whole thing ends up being a surprisingly funny, nonsensical, and unsubtly sexual romp, in which sometimes people get turned to stone and believing in fairy tales turns out to be the key to not living life as a dead person, erm, vampire.

It might have seemed less nonsensical if one had seen movies one through five. Then again, during the credits, when the actors bowed (yes, bowed), and clips from the previous movies played, I noticed that the past movies seemed a bit light on motorcycles and vampires and so, maybe, at some point there was a Mad Max style apocalypse, or, possibly the director just decided the fifth movie was the right time to introduce to his young audience the true stakes of love and death (Oh, dear. I've punned.)

I don't know. But, I think, maybe some research is warranted.

Happy Sunday, readers.


ttfn.

p.s. Here's a poster.

In Which There Is Mentioned Ghosts, Dancing Detectives, And Kelly Link.

Hello, readers.

The semester of school which was my first as a teacher of Korean type children is coming to a close. The students just finished turning in their final video projects. They were given five options: news broadcast, cooking show, music video, foreigner interview, or commercial. Many did cooking, some did news. A few brave souls interviewed foreigners. Less did commercials and music videos. A handful, asked, and received permission, to do something completely different. Something completely different ended up meaning such things as television parodies, folk and fairy tales, and horror movies.

In most cases, the videos turned out quite well. A few had sound issues and format wonkiness. A few seemed a bit rushed. A few became famous--at least inside our school. A parody of a drama called Boys Over Flowers, for one, as well as a music video in which a group of dancing girl super detectives investigate my kidnapping by boogying across Seoul, for two, became popular enough that students in different classes began requesting them.

All of this has taught me many things of which I shall three.

1) Video projects are, whatever frustrations and stress they may entail--both for teachers and students, awesome.

2) Korean students need more creative outlets.

3) Korean girls love horror movies. They also love dancing. If someone does not show them The Rocky Horror Picture Show then I fear the universe will have failed them.

Speaking of the universe, here's a video of Carl Sagan singing about the universe.

Also, if you didn't know, Gwenda Bond has been keeping track of Kelly Link's blog tour in which Kelly Link has discussed, among other things, her fears of possessing inadequate driving skills should a zombie apocalypse arise.

Finally, Laura Miller thinks maybe bloggers should avoid embedding links inside their posts, waiting instead to post them at the bottom. She believes this may induce better, and less superficial, writing.

She may be right.

I feel quite superficial at the moment.

For example, all of these recent things came via Gwenda Bond's blog in which they appeared as embedded links to click.


ttfn, readers.

p.s...

Snow Crash, Stories, and A Third Thing I Haven't Thought Of Yet..

Hello, readers.

How are you?

Well, I hope.

Here's a bit of bookish rambling.

If you haven't read anything by Neal Stephenson, that bearded and balded plotter of speculative/historical/mathematical stories of which, very often, there are secrets and cults and, as mentioned, math, then you are very much like me, as I was, about a week ago, before I finished Snow Crash, a book about religion, virtual worlds, ancient mythology, and the greatest sword-fighter who ever lived. It was a deeply intellectual, at times lecture-ish sort of book, that occasionally featured chases, sword fights, and harpooning. Somehow, it ended up being about the history of human language and civilization. There was also a dog.

I very much liked the dog.

I won't tell you what happens with the dog. It's very cool.

Right now I'm reading Kazuo Ishiguro's When We Were Orphans, mostly because, last night, I ran across this trailer for the movie adaptation of Never Let Me Go.

I've never read Never Let Me Go, nor have I seen the trailer. I don't want to spoil it. I've heard good things about both, though.

Speaking of things I've never seen, or read, but am excited about regardless, Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio have recently put out a collection of stories called, erm, Stories. It includes work by the editors themselves, as well as many other wonderful authors of which there are so many I feel compelled to call them a slew.

And so I shall. Just then. In my mind. It was great.

And now where's that third thing. I promised a third thing. There should always be a third thing.

Here it is.

If you ever find yourself in Seoul, during the World Cup, and you decide to go to City Hall to watch their game against Argentina, you will most likely have a great deal of fun, be impressed by the cheering and singing, and, in the end, be both saddened by the results but also happy that, for one shining moment, South Korea scored a goal and you got to jump up and down and hug and be hugged by complete strangers for no more better reason than you were there, and they were there, and there was a cause worth celebrating.

Here are pictures.

Enjoy.














ttfn, readers.