Hold on... does this work?
It just gets funnier and funnier...right to the last minute, which is as funny as all but a few of Saturday Night Live's magic moments (more cowbell, anyone?) Satire, bar none, is the best way to eviscerate someone... maybe even better than one of these. (how do you like THAT, Gomushin Girl? Who's evil now?)
If Saturday Night Live did this to me, I don't know how I'd look at myself in the mirror.
So I randomly stumbled across this on Youtube (I SWEAR I was not searching for Wonder Girls)
Super-Pop-Producer JYP has been taking online auditions for his next manufactured pop band, including this 13-year old kid (meaning 11 or 12 western age), Jo Gwon, who (especially in her first dance audition in the video) shows off a pretty good voice (for a kid) a really fantastically goofy knack for rocking up a crowd with wacky dances. With a little polish (see 5:40 - 6:40), I'm sure she could be the next product off the JYP shelf.
Meanwhile, the dance lesson part of the video (starting at 3:38) is just. plain. weird. at 4:48, you get to watch JYP, a big grown-up male, teaching a bunch of eleven and twelve year-old possible future products, all girls, how to twist their torsos like sexybacks (a skill he successfully imparted to his most successful proteges)...and it's just weird, is all. (Though when Jo Gwon, who's obviously there for her pipes and not her steps, tries to do these kinds of moves. . . it's really really funny in a cute, not-yet-perverted-or-commodified-youth, i-don't-understand-the-suggestions-this-dance-move-makes-so-i'm-just-imitating-my-dance-coach sort of way.)
If you are looking for a blog ... that will make you say “WTF!” before you burst out laughing, a blog that will make you wonder if this man even has a job to have time to find stuff like this, then look no further.
Thanks Otto. You just made my day, and possibly my week.
The won is dropping like a bag of unwanted kittens in a river. I'm not sure whether I should send everything to Canada now, before it drops now, or send the minimum possible and hold onto my won until things get better. Yup. Things are bad enough that I'm actually THINKING about stuff like this. In 2004 or so, 870 won bought a Canadian dollar. Now, it takes a bit over 1100. If I send a thousand dollars home, I'm losing about $300.
This video was buried near the end of the really long Andong Mask Festival post. . . and I wanted to bring more attention to it, because this was one of the loveliest experiences I've had in all my travels, and I'd like to share the wonder.
In case you said "Post too long already. Will not watch." -- if you did that, you made a mistake, missing out on this one.
Skip the rest if you like, but watch this video. (Hang on to the end, too: there's more.)
On Saturday October 4th at 1PM, I'm gonna be in the Starbucks near Kyungbok Station (Subway line 3). I'm gonna climb Inwang Mountain, a great little mountain right next to downtown Seoul, with important history in Korea's Shamanistic past. On the way down, we're gonna walk through a cool little preserved mountainside village, and end of in one of the nicest, tastiest coffee shops I've ever been to.
The climb's not too long, and not too difficult, so you shouldn't have much trouble. . . don't wear high heels or flip-flops, of course, and maybe bring an extra T-shirt to change into if it's hot, and a water bottle. I'd like to head out at about 1:30.
If you want to join me, come on! The best way to enjoy Korea is to get out and do stuff like this. Come to the Starbucks instructions, with pictures, in this video clip.
It helps if you send me an e-mail at roboseyo (at) gmail (dot) com, or send me a note on facebook (search for Roboseyo) so that I can expect you, and we don't leave anyone behind who wanted to come. Come and enjoy one of my favourite parts of Seoul with me.
(how do you like THAT, Gomushin Girl? Who's evil now?)
