Advent Post: How I Almost Decided to Hate God, Authenticity, and why One Sufjan Stevens does More Good Than The Entire CCM Industry... Part 1

Lately, the cause of consternation back home has been the condition of Roboseyo's faith. The last things I wrote here about faith were worrisome enough, (April Fools, when I claimed to have converted to Buddhism, and the provocative title, "Why Modern Religion Deserves Richard Dawkins") but the eight month ABSENCE of writing on the subject seems to be even WORSE, and has been the topic of a handful of phone calls and e-mails.

Fair enough. I steered away from Faith topics here, at about the same time as I started commenting on some of the other Korea blogs, and putting my name out in that community -- I decided to try and get involved in those dialogues, and in doing so, adapted my blog for my new, hoped-for audience. I stayed away from the intensely personal subject of faith for the same reason I put on pants before I answer a knock at my door, and close the blinds when I change: impressive as it may be...don't everybody need to see that business, yah?

But last Christmas, for Advent, I contributed a guest post for my dear friend Tamie's blog, and honestly, it's one of the pieces of writing I'm most proud of. It being advent again, it seems like a good time to add another year's worth of reflection.

And this year, I have a story for you, titled, "How I Almost Decided to Hate God" about, um, just that.

As my long-time readers know, in September 2005, my mother lost her year-long battle with stomach cancer. The family was all at her bedside, and singing a church hymn, when she stopped breathing, and in a nutshell, that's the religious heritage I grew up in. After I returned to Korea, following my Mother's death, a certain, lovely young lady was a large part of my reason to return, as well as a big part of what helped me keep my bearings while watching the tumor in my mother's stomach crowd out the space where food should go. Whatever it was we had certainly had not been built to bear the weight of a giant black obelisk of grief, and fell apart, predictably, but startlingly quickly, at the same time as my best friend was preparing to marry her twin sister.

While my best friend's wedding was a little spark of joy, the few weeks leading up to it were pretty damn bleak, and I had a lot of fingers pointed in anger at God during that time. Quietly, she bore my accusations of her hating me, and even my claims that maybe she didn't exist after all, and certainly didn't give a rip about me (among other things, I have learned since then that God and religion and spirituality are not All About Me. More on that some other time.) As with my relationship with the lovely exgirlfriendoseyo, the faith I'd kept until then, too, didn't seem built to bear the weight of that giant black obelisk of grief, which turned out to pretty much be a wrecking ball.

And so that first year passed by. For a few months, I went to the dance clubs every weekend, not to meet girls or hang out, or have fun drinking, but to dance until I was a sweating, exhausted rag doll, to try and vent at least a bit of my grief and anger. My dad came and visited me, and we shared the kinds of silences that only we two could have shared, having been the two living in the house day by day, watching mom turn away more and more of the meals we set before her, blander in taste and smaller in portion as time went by, until she finally rejected food altogether.

The one-year anniversary of mom's death came and went, and a couple of coworkers took me out for beer so I didn't have to spend it alone in my apartment, staring at a wall and reliving the death-rattle (three years later, I can still conjure exactly the sound, and even the smell of that room. Sour milk and unwashed hair.) We didn't find out until shortly later that one of the two was totally batshit insane.

And one of my coworkers introduced me to a friend of hers: a former student whose family she had met and befriended. I'd heard her talking about them a few times, and asked if I could meet them before she left. Fortunately, she complied, and I was lucky enough to meet a really nice family that included two wonderful young ladies, aged ten and seven at the time. The ten year-old was just ridiculously smart: she showed me a story she wrote, and it was about what I'd expect from a very bright fourteen-year-old Canadian girl, not a ten-year-old Korean kid who'd never been out of the country.

Sally


Lisa

circa November 2006

The younger one quickly earned the nickname Giggles, because she was the funniest little thing you've ever met, and the two sisters loved each other fiercely: the younger one, Lisa, had taught herself to speak English nearly as well as her older sister, mostly out of sheer adulation as far as I can tell, and the older one took care of Lisa like a mother bear. Mom was a bit serious, pushing high expectations on her brilliant eldest, and Dad was a pretty quiet background presence all the way through, but Lisa was without a doubt, the joy in that household, and any time I spent time with that family, she made sure there were bubbles and sloshes of laughter spilling all over the place.

One day I got a phone call from the older sister. "Guess where Lisa went."
As usual, I started off silly. "Um, to Thailand? To Italy?"
"Rob. This is serious." And her voice stopped me in my tracks.
"Lisa went to heaven. She was in an accident and she went to heaven."




Yeah.




It feels impossibly narcissistic to talk about how I felt, in the face of a family losing their youngest sister and daughter. Even now, two years after, I can only type about three words at a time before taking a break to think about what it would be like to have something like that happen in my family, and pause, staggered all over again, and in the face of a tragedy like that, I have half a mind to end the post altogether...

but here's the thing.

That June, if you'd asked me point blank, I would have told you I wasn't a Christian (the label I'd had for myself all my life).  I'd have told you I didn't believe in God at all.  I'd have told you it hurt too much to believe in God, because then somebody must have LET all those life-changing, soul-scouring things happen to me, that it hurt less to believe it was total, random shit-happens chance, than to believe something out there had some kind of PLAN that REQUIRED me to go through what I did.

(by the way, I'm fully aware, and you don't have to remind me, that people have gone through much worse than I did: I've met some of them, and they broke my heart...but they can write their own stories on their own blogs)

But that's where I was at that time. It would have been easier to abandon the idea of meaning, than to have to hash through all the shit that happens to people, and try to keep looking for it, to insist that there IS a meaning, when faced with Erin, who lost her two brothers to malaria at age ten, and her parents to a plane crash at age twenty, and if you'd asked me what I thought about God, I would probably have had a few choice words for you. One of them starts with F.

But a funny thing happened when I got that phone call from Sally, and I still can't explain it. See, as soon as I finished talking to Sally (during which I was very intently focused on talking to this wonderful young lady who looked at me like some kind of big brother or kindly uncle, who'd lent me her Animorphs books), my mind went in two directions simultaneously. One part of me said "Well, fuck. That's it. In case I doubted before, God has very conveniently shown me she doesn't give a flying fuck about any of us here earthside, so fuck her too," and registered that this, if there ever had been, was a perfect moment to abandon God, purpose, pattern, and the search for meaning entirely. That door was hanging wide open, and I don't think anybody could have blamed me for stepping through it, and slamming it shut as hard as I goddamn pleased.

But you see...

at the same time, another part, somewhere in the deeper, vaguer parts of my mind, where thoughts come out as shapes and half-formed pictures and gestures instead of in neat words and phrases, this urgent need to pray for Sally and her family pulled me away from that gaping doorway, before I could make a single motion toward the door, before I could even ponder a post-God life, even though I had practically forgotten the language people use when they pray.

To this day, it remains one of the more mysterious moments in my life, and frankly, I'm still trying to make sense of it.

So where does Sufjan Stevens figure in?

Hang in there, and I'll tell you in part two.

The Mechanics of a Musical Bliss-Out: Roboseyo Talks about Music He Loves

It doesn't actually take much to make me love a musician. Just a good bliss-out will do.

Oh. Wait. That's hard.

This song has gone up on my site before... and it probably will again, too. Rock Plaza Central: "Be Joyful"


There are a lot of artists out there, making a lot of different kinds of music, and there is a ton of music I love for different reasons.

Some breaks your heart.

Some is really clever.

Some is really poetic -- read the words, and they'll knock your socks off.

And I love a good songwriter. I love poetry and grace and wit in a song. I love something intriguing, I love a bit of sadness harsh as a hot coal that drops right into your soul. I love a bit of rage from time to time (though I'll admit rage is my weak spot: got less of that than the others), or a spike of unaltered adrenaline, or a world-weary sigh, or a bit of sick technical skill mixed with pure blues soul, or a really gorgeous voice.  I tried to parse Bob Dylan's lyrics with the best of them, and sometimes a rusty, creaky voice can break my heart, too.

But sometimes, what I really need is a good, solid bliss-out.

So what is a bliss-out, Roboseyo?

Well, I'm glad you asked, dear reader.

A musical bliss-out is one of those spots where everything else disappears, where the only thing left is pure joy.  There might be words, there might not be; either way, the words aren't important.  Bliss-outs could, I suppose, be traced all the way back to the earliest ecstatic musical rituals, if I were a scholar (read up on Quawwali singing for a good example of this).  Bliss-outs can appear in any musical genre, occur more frequently live than on studio recordings, and are always, always better if you play it loud.  They're the moments when the band stops following the sheet music, and cuts loose with pure joy, and carries everyone else along with them (if they don't carry the listeners along, it's not a bliss-out; it's a musical circle-jerk).

Most bliss-outs don't occur in a vacuum, and here's the hard thing about them.  See, you could never make a "bliss-out mix tape" or a "bliss-out playlist" because bliss-outs are too powerful, and putting them next to each other would diminish their impact: it would be like eating three courses of extra spicy food in a row: the spice is no longer something special, or think of eating a bag of skittles or ketchup chips, where after the first three, your tongue is so shell-shocked with sweetness or saltiness that you don't even taste the rest of the bag.  After the first bliss-out, the rest of the playlist would lose its impact, in the same way that walking along a mountain ridgeline is not as exciting as reaching that peak for the first time.  In fact, with many good bliss-outs, the setup is an important part of the experience: this is why very few albums can get away with putting a bliss-out on the first track of a CD (though some have).

Think of a roller coaster: you wait for an hour to get on.  That waiting is part of the ride, and I swear, the ninety seconds of thrill is better when you've waited thirty minutes, than when you just walk on the ride during a slow day at the park.  Getting on the ride partially gratifies the anticipation, but then, think of this: no roller coaster ever boards passengers on the top of the hill, because they know that that first, long climb up the first tall hill is essential to the experience, too.  It builds up suspense, heightens the emotional pitch, so that the rest of the ride will be more exciting again, than if you start the ride at the top of the first drop.

In the same way, a truly excellent bliss-out requires a good set-up.  My favourite bliss-outs require an entire album to create them -- one (Silent, by The Field) won't stand up as a bliss-out without all the five songs leading up to it, but WITH them (and loud), hoo boy!

So here's the second bliss-out I'll offer up to you: Festival, from Sigur Ros' newest album.


This song takes almost ten minutes to unfold, and the songs before it help a fella get into the Sigur Ros aesthetic, without which, the first four minutes of this one risk floating off into fruity nation (Sigur Ros -- what a band!  It took me three years to get used to the idea of what sounds like a band inspired by whale sounds, but once I did, they create perfect moments of music with startling regularity, and know exactly how to shape a soundscape.)

But if you skip the first four minutes, it's JUST NOT THE SAME.  It doesn't have the same impact.  Rare is the bliss-out that dares to appear without context, and smack your face with joy out of nowhere.  (OutKast's Hey-Ya counts among that number) but even those ones often appear in context of the rest of an album, and should.  The dynamic shift and contrast, the way the bliss-out is balanced by the rest of the album, gives it shape which enhances its meaning.

Case in point: maybe the most famous musical bliss-out ever: the final movement of Beethoven's 9th symphony, which spends forty entire minutes of decoy bliss-outs (which keep topping themselves), passages of storm and thunder, hints of joy, snatches of peace, just so that when the payoff DOES come, buddy, it'll flatten you, if you play it as loudly as it SHOULD be played.  (Rule of thumb: play it loud enough to clearly hear the low strings introduce the final theme in the 4th movement.  (The part that comes at 11:05 in this clip.)  Then do NOT turn down the volume when it gets louder.  That quiet part is in there to tell you how loudly the rest ought to be played.  [bliss-out begins in earnest at 21:00 -- and you thought it had already begun five minutes ago!])  

This is the stuff that you play, loud, on your headphones, and start smiling for no reason in the street.  It's the stuff that gets you out of bed when you're having a hard time, or gets you feeling like "heck yeah, I CAN finish this project on time."   It's the stuff that stays in your head all day, and makes you happier, instead of annoyed.

I'm tempted to put twelve video-clips up right here, but as I explained earlier, a bliss-out needs, and deserves room to breathe.  See my explanation of why you can't make a bliss-out playlist.

So for the next few weeks, from time to time, I'm going to put a "roboseyo bliss-out" up on the blog.  Play them loud.  For a few, I'll explain how and why they make me feel awesome.  Get on the joy train, readers, and don't skip them by!

Pa-har-taaaayyy!

Matt, editor of the Expat Living section of the Korea Herald, organized a bit of a get-together for contributors to that section of the Korea Herald, and the photographer David Smeaton (whom I've linked here before) has posted some lovely photos of the event.

Go check them out! (I hope he doesn't mind that I borrowed his picture of me, to post here: it's a keeper.)

the photo above belongs to David Smeaton. not me. don't steal it or make money from it or anything. just look at it and then go visit his site.

It was a good time: one nice thing about getting together with a group like that is the sheer variety of lengths of time, experiences, and perspectives on Korea. Refreshing. If it's your first year, and all your friends are also in their first year in Korea, seriously, it's time to stretch out and find some friends who have been around the block, preferably enough times to want to talk about stuff OTHER than "Korea" (I mean, really, how much can you talk about the Education system in Korea before it's all been said before anyway?)

Good times, brothers and sisters. Good times.

This is the Icecaekki guy.

This has been up on my youtube account for a while, but I wanted to mention the Icekaekki guy. I love his big ol' ballyhoo, he walks up and down insadong in a silly suit shouting, and he's a nice guy. He even posed and hollered for my camera.

Hope you like him, and if you hear him shout in insadong, go buy a melon-flavoured popsicle. Nice.

Look out Wondergirls!

Sweety is coming!

A bit more on Christmas Music, and How it SHOULD be done.

I've already pointed you to my previous rant about Christmas:
If you don't care to hear more ranting, skip the stuff about "Oh Holy Night" and start reading where it says, "Now I want to tell you about Sufjan Stevens".

As you may have gathered, O Holy Night can be a symbol of everything wrong with Christmas music:

It might just be the second prettiest Christmas song (nothing touches Silent Night) but it certainly IS the Star Spangled Banner of Christmas songs: that is, the one that can be mangled the most horribly by a showoff singer. It seems like this song is the subject of an unspoken contest, for which singer can sing it the loudest, accompanied by the largest orchestra (see also: Josh Groban, David Phelps (yuck) Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood Sarah Brightman, Martina McBride, and even Pavarotti).
(ps: this one's so bad it's hilarious, and we can't forget the South Park version.)

However, it is such a jaw-droppingly gorgeous song, that it sometimes even survives those munch-downs (being chewed up and spit out by so many octave-skippers), and stays good -- but I'll swear to you, that it's best when done in a stripped-down, simple way -- take away everything but the essential, and let the melody speak for itself.

For comparison, I'll give you some examples of how the song works, given a few different artists' treatments: here is Tracy Chapman's version, followed by Mariah Carey's version (the most overplayed one in Korea). I have put together these videos to provide a totally objective contrast, so that the photos selected for the slide shows in no way show which of these versions I like better.

Seriously.

By Tracy Chapman


and...
By Mariah Carey


Here's Celine Dion's version -- which actually surprised me by knowing when to quit, and how many backup singers was enough (not her strong point)


Now, I'm not calling Mariah's version the worst (I'd put David Phelps and Sarah Brightman a full three levels of Hell lower than her for their versions), but let's just say 1. we've heard the overdone version already, and 2. it's the most overplayed version in Korea, and 3. this is Christmas, not a contest. Give me something I haven't heard before, that respects the song again.

So, my new favourite (or at least second, after dear Tracy), is Sufjan Stevens, who makes the song sound --gasp! Like a celebration. I've added a slide show of pictures from a few recent parties I've been to, to add to the festive feel.


Now I want to tell you about Sufjan Stevens


See, Sufjan Stevens is this quiet little indie folk-singer/songwriter from the United States, who sings touching, whispery songs about touching, whispery topics, and has won himself quite a loyal following doing so, because he just doesn't sound like anybody else, and he brings something unique to his music.

He sings about things he cares about, or at least sings as if he cares about them, and he always has an interesting story or something.  Well, in the early oughties, Sufjan recorded little do-it-yourself Christmas albums each year for his friends and family, and handed them out, and then his label put them all together into a collection called "Songs For Christmas" which is what Christmas should be.   I first heard this last year, and I wasn't quite ready for all the lovely packed into a double cd, so I listened through it twice and moved on, after picking a song for my Christmas Mix, but on more listens, it grows on me more: this is Christmas Music as it should be, and these are the kinds of artists who SHOULD be making Christmas Music.

He never goes over the top, many of the tracks are short little arrangements with bouncing glockenspiels or strumming banjos that just SOUND like walking in fresh snow or watching flashing Christmas lights.  The music is delicate and pleasant, but never quite cheesy, because there's always something you've never heard before, in each song.  He mixes sacred music with songs about Santa Claus and reindeer (because that's what Christmas is really like) and treats every song with a bit of respect, or a bit of fun, as it needs.  Frankly, if you grew up in the church at all, as I did, the tender beauty with which he delivers the sacred music is really moving.

Here are three of his songs: Hark The Herald Angels Sing, sounding like flashing christmas light, a simple, harmonized version of the beautiful, sacred hymn, "Lo, How A Rose E'er Blooming" and then "Sister Winter," which starts as a warm recollection of his friends, and builds to a blissful celebration of friendship and love on the holidays, an original composition that, because of its joyful spirit, fits right in alongside the classics.

This is how Christmas should sound.  Last night I walked around with Girlfriendoseyo, sharing this music in the MP3 player, and let me just leave it at this: get out and buy this CD set.  Get it. 

More about Sufjan later.

Happy Holidays, all! 

Happy Baby Jesus day, and happy winter gift-giving shopping festival, too! 

From Tamie

Set aside a bit of time (fifteen minutes), and watch it. It's worth every second. This is the Amelie of short films. I giggled, I cared about the main character, I got involved in the story. I don't know if I've seen a short film so effective.


My friend Tamie is a brilliant blogger, and she writes an amazing blog, and during Advent, this year and last, she's set herself to posting every day of advent, and the things she comes up with are touching, honest, sweet, wise, and inspiring. She's even inspired me to write an advent post (last year and this)... it's bubbling up; give it some time.

And watch the video.

Jillaekott and the Difficulty of Translation

Ask A Korean! (with a festive exclamation mark) has written a wonderful post.

The song Jillaekott, by Jang Sa-ik, a wonderful Korean singer, and a wonderful Korean song, which I posted a little while ago, was taken by The Korean! (with a festive exclamation mark), and translated to English.

He gave the song and the singer a bit of extra attention, which it deserves, and he also uses it to demonstrate the difficulty of translating things from one language to the other, and what is always, inevitably, lost in the transition. He goes through, line by line, and describes the various difficulties of translating the different lines and phrases, and the ways that the nearest English approximations don't catch the same nuances...or bring in entirely different nuances that point the meanings in the wrong directions.

Here is the music clip,


here are the official lyrics, in Korean
찔레꽃

하얀 꽃 찔레꽃
순박한 꽃 찔레꽃

별처럼 슬픈 찔레꽃
달처럼 서러운 찔레꽃

찔레꽃 향기는
너무 슬퍼요

그래서 울었지
밤새워 울었지

찔레꽃 향기는
너무 슬퍼요

그래서 울었지
목놓아 울었지

아 찔레꽃처럼 울었지
찔레꽃처럼 춤췄지

찔레꽃처럼 날았지
찔레꽃처럼 울었지

찔레꽃처럼 춤췄지
당신은 찔레꽃

찔레꽃처럼 울었지
당신은


and here is The Korean's final translation,

Mountain Rose

White flower, Mountain Rose,
Simple flower, Mountain Rose.

Sad like a star, Mountain Rose,
Doleful like the moon, Mountain Rose.

Scent of the Rose is
Too sorrowful.

Therefore, cried.
All night, cried.

Scent of the Rose is
Too sorrowful.

Therefore, cried.
Wailed and cried.

Ah – cried like Mountain Rose
Danced like Mountain Rose

Flew like Mountain Rose
Cried like Mountain Rose

Danced like Mountain Rose
You are Mountain Rose

Cried like Mountain Rose
You did


When I have finished the poem that started brewing when I first listened to this song, I will post it on the blog, too.

And here is my final message to The Korean: thank you so much for doing this! You are hereby invited to my next birthday party, and the one after that, too.

(P.S.: Also covered by The Marmot)

Snow Last Weekend

Here is a picture of Dongdaemun from Saturday night.

Here is a nice picture of the snow we had on Sunday evening.
The sound of snow hitting the frozen leaves of this tree was nice.

So was the snow, just in general: I've set it to music from the "Winter" section of "Korea: The Musical" (oops: I mean, "Vivaldi's Four Seasons"), in what is the most accurate rendering of falling snow into another medium that I have heard.

Got a nice link here...

The Korean Class 101 is a recent addition to my RSS feed, so imagine my surprise when my own image turned up there!

Because of my picture, It's a pretty good post, giving a brief look at the whole unhappy expat thing I covered in the "Why do Expats Complain" series, and also offering a brief survey of some notable Korea Blogs, which serve as a good starting point for knowing who's who.

Thanks, guys.