Pimatgol: one of the loveliest little side-alley tangles in Seoul, is being razed. Soon, this: Will be replaced with more of this: and this: the La Meilleur building, and one of the more eyesorey eyesores in downtown Seoul, and this: tossing a bone to the destroyed pimatgol with this mockery of the original back-alley (600 year history?...needs a 7-11) I hate when Seoul's cool neighbourhoods get ruined by redevelopment or gentrification... in Dali (and that CHINA, folks, freakin' CHINA!) the municipal government has laws about certain neighborhoods, requiring new buildings to match the style of the old buildings, in order to maintain the local feeling, and a city that wants to be a world hub of everything can't even preserve one of the coolest alley networks in the city, and the kind of area that COULD BE MARKETED. Dumbasses.
Seoul is poorer for the loss of pimatgol. It was such a lovely area, and really should have been cleaned up rather than razed. I lived around here for 16 months, and it was one of my favorite times in Korea, and pimatgol is like a maze of wonders, but now it's been cleared right out, and if those homey, bustling little alleyways with their awesome hole-in-the-wall restaurants get replaced with another glass-and-steel abomination. I hate, hate, hate, how the local color gets bleached out for steel-and-glass, and I rue the fact Seoul was hyper-developed during the steel-and-glass era, which remains to my mind the ugliest architectural aesthetic out there.
Holy crap. This is one of the stories so embarrassing that Korean Tourism should suspend operations and send all its people over to work in Korean mental health programs to improve them, before they continue promoting Korea in conventional ways.
Canada just awarded refugee status to a paranoid-schizophrenic Korean woman, not because her church was out to get her, as her original complaint went, but because Korean mental health care is so poor that it amounts to persecution.
Yep. You read that right. Korean health care is so poor that Canada awarded refugee status to a Korean woman. Vancouver Sun reports.
from the article:
South Koreans with mental illness are treated as an extreme underclass, with one hospital room sleeping 100 women with just 15 mats and no room for personal belongings, according to a letter submitted to the board and written by Daniel Fisher, executive director the National Empowerment Center in Lawrence, Mass.
However, before we get too high on Canada as the greatest country in the world...read some of the comments below the article. Sure, it's no Korea Times comment board, and some of the people might be right about Canada's ability to care for its own mental illness patients, but it's still pretty bad.
Here are the ten CDs that have really made me happy over the last half-year.
Including my bliss-out of the week: slow with horns, by Dan Deacon, from the album "Bromst"
The rules are simple: I must have discovered the CD sometime in the last six months. I don't care if some of them are old news to you, and I also don't care if some of them don't float your boat, for any reason. They make me happy, and that's enough. In no particular order:
6. Bill Callahan - Sometimes I Wish I were an Eagle. Rich, deep voice, gentle arrangements, quirky lyrics: so much to like in a really, really nice, intriguing but relaxing Sunday afternoon album. Favorite song: "Rococo Zephyr" for having a Rococo Zephyr as a character in the song. Here's another song from the album, on Youtube. I've talked enough about TV On The Radio that I won't write about it here.
4. Dan Deacon - Bromst - some artists have music good for parties. Dan Deacon's music sounds like the instruments are having a party. Favorite track on the album: "Slow With Horns". "Wham City" from "Spiderman of the Rings" is a better song than any on Bromst, the newer one, but Bromst wins out for more consistent awesomenity. listen to Dan Deacon on his Myspace Page.
1. Camper Van Beethoven - Key Lime Pie - a classic from the 1989, a solid songwriting effort with wit and that something extra that makes you want to listen to it again a week later, and snags lines and phrases in your head.
7. Jamie Cullum - Twentysomething - best Jeff Buckley song I've heard by Not Jeff Buckley so far: Lover, You Should Have Come Over. High and Dry gets a nice, mellow jazz version that reveals the song's strong songwriting. Jang SaIk 장사익 -- 하늘가는 길 the song 찔레꽃 is just heartbreaking.
2. Mugison - Mugiboogie - wacky, weird, noisy and then touching. This album is all over the map, and continuously intriguing, if a bit inaccessible. You really, seriously never know which instrument or sound is going to jump out of a corner and startle you next. The Music Tapes - Music for Clouds and Tornadoes
3. Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings - Naturally - wins by a nose over 100 Days, 100 Nights, because of the song "Stranded in your Love" an awesome, awful, co-dependent duet, which unfortunately isn't on Youtube. Here's the title track from 100 Days, 100 Nights, which contains all the reasons you should love Sharon Jones: she's a throwback to that old '70s motown sound, that rich, fat sound, the swaggering Aretha Franklin swing. The power, the heat, all that!
5. Sufjan Stevens - Songs for Christmas - Vol. 1-5. I wrote about these before, so I won't now.
8. Swan Lake - Enemy Mine - creaky, articulate, odd but compelling, Swan Lake is the team-up of two indie rock-superstars. Their first album was uneven, as if they hadn't figured out how to sound TOGETHER yet, but this one is a really nice, tight effort from Spencer Krug (a favorite of mine from Wolf Parade and Sunset Rubdown, who brings something sweeping yet childlike to his instrumentals) and Dan Bejar (of Destroyer, the awesome The New Pornographers, who brings verve and wit to his lyrics) Here's a nice track with a claustrophobic feeling that suddenly opens into one of those great bridges that Spencer Krug pops off with startling frequency. (at 2:00)
10. - The Walkmen - You & Me - didn't impress me at first, but it's been growing on me more and more. Another solid album from top to bottom, that's got some strong songwriting (I'm a sucker for good songwritine) and an atmosphere all its own. The emotive but slightly adrift vocals, and then frantic, mounting choruses and bridges, create a nice counterpoint. There's a lot of open space in here. In the New Year is a good track that shows off their strengths.
11. (bonus:) Spiritualized - Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space - Broken Heart - sweeping orchestral spiritual sadness. After the hypnotic repetitions of intro song "Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space," this is the one that actually carries the album off INTO space.
포털 네이버에 올라온 6월 11일자 당신의 기사 “자질 시비 원어민 교사 판친다”를 읽고 매우 충격을 받았습니다.
많은 대다수의 원어민 교사들은 매일 매일 그들의 수업에 열심히 참여하고 있으며, 실제로 그들이 하고 있는 일에 즐겁게 참여하고 있습니다. 대다수의 원어민 교사들은 아이들과 아이들의 미래에 대하여 고민하고 있습니다. 그러나 항상 예외는 있게 마련입니다. 하지만 당신의 기사는 마치 대다수의 원어민이 자질에 문제가 있는것처럼 만들었습니다.
저는 당신의 기사에서 어떤 원어민의 인터뷰도 없는 것을 보았습니다. 단지 전해 들은 이야기이다라는 식이었습니다. 사실과 그 사실을 증명할 만한 증거는 어디에 있는건가요? 언론의 기본과 기준은 어디에 있나요? 언론으로서의 전문적인 기준은 모든 측이 공평하게 이야기되어져야하며, 양측에게 모두 이야기할 수 있는 기회가 주어져야함을 요구합니다. 당신이 기사화했다는 것만으로 그것이 사실이 되는 것은 아닙니다.
이런 종류의 선정적인 기사 보도가 마치 철저한 조사에 바탕을 둔 기사처럼 보인다는 점에서 저는 분개하지 않을 수 없습니다. 불행한 것은, 이런 식의 접근이 언론에서 너무 흔하게 발견된다는 사실입니다.
당신의 기사는 한국의 전문 뉴스 통신사로서의 기준도 지키지 않고 있을 뿐만아니라, 외국인 혐오증과 자민족 중심성을 더욱 촉진시키고 있습니다.
연합뉴스! 그런 기본도 안되는 기사를 싣는 당신이 부끄럽습니다.
[Translation]
I was shocked to find your 6-11 article “자질 시비 원어민 교사 판친다” on naver.com.
The vast majority of native English teachers show up for work every day ready to teach, and actually enjoy what they are doing. They care about the students and their future. There are always exceptions, but this article makes it seem like the rule [norm].
I noticed that there are no quotes from English teachers in this story. It is all hear-say. Where are the facts and supporting evidence? Where are the journalistic integrity and standards?
Professional standards demand that all sides be equally represented and given a chance to speak for themselves. Just because you print something doesn’t make it fact.
I’m outraged that this kind of sensationalist opinion piece actually passes as investigative journalism. Unfortunately, this approach is too common in the media.
Not only is this story below the standards of a national newswire, it also fuels the fires of xenophobia and ethnocentrism.
Shame on you, Yonhap, for printing this ignorant hate speech!
I don't want to say anything about Yonhap News' latest piece of racist muckraking. But I have to.
However, it must be said that when racist garbage like Yonhap News' latest hit piece on English teachers comes out, people know. Koreans are not the only people who read Yonhap news, and even if most Koreans don't read what is written about Korea in English (why bother when I'm sure Naver has another essay up today about Korea's glorious four seasons), other people, in other countries want to learn about Korea, and when they find things like this: Yonhap: Unfit, Foulmouthed, Drunken English Teachers Running Rampant it doesn't matter how many Korean language articles there are to be found on Naver and Daum about the health benefits of Kimchi: English speakers still read mention of articles like this one, and frankly, here's the impression it gives:
Only a country full of racists would allow a media outlet to publish a piece as full of unchecked racism as this.
Now, this isn't necessarily true: we've all met a lot of Koreans who are super-cool, cosmopolitan, global-minded, who deplore such bald racism... but why aren't they storming down the doors of media outlets that publish this kind of yellow journalism, and demanding accountability... their silence reads as tacit approval, and Korea looks bad.
And Korea SHOULD look bad, until its media is roundly, and loudly criticized for playing on people's worst fears. Korea DESERVES to be embarrassed on the world stage, if it allows their media so much unchecked irresponsibilty. That's all.
Shame on you, Yonhap, and shame on every media outlet that publishes junk like this, and on every editor who approves it, and on every Korean who is silent while media outlets make their country look like some kind of racist backwater. Shame on all of you.
Art Brut: "Good Weekend" -- funny funny song. You can totally tell he's singing to sixteen-year-olds.
The chorus: "Got myself a brand new girlfriend" is adolescent glee, but the real clincher is the end of the bridge, with the triumphal cry, "I've seen her naked...TWICE!"
Can't embed it, but click the link and have a laugh.
Soy Caramel Maquillados from Starbucks. Lindt Dark Chocolate Banana Chips outrageous inappropriate shock humor hitting the snooze button three or more times
and... four kinds of movie: 1. James Bond 2. Superhero/Comic Book Action 3. Hong Kong Kung-fu action - I'd even argue that this one isn't purely a guilty pleasure: see, it's amazing, what these dudes can do with their bodies: the athleticism and skill of choreographing and performing those things is a thing of wonder. 4. Zombie movies!!!!
Soundtrack: the Zombeatles: It's Been a Hard Day's Night Of The Living Dead. Hit play and read.
I downloaded a bunch, and I've been devouring them with glee: working on other stuff while doing this.
See, Zombie movies are awful. Dramatically, the premise of zombies is incredibly limited: they all follow the same line --
1. zombies break out, 2. spread inexorably, and then the last half of the movie always, ALWAYS ends with 3. humans hiding in various buildings with boarded up doors and windows, keeping zombies out, hoping zombies don't come in: 4. at best, the good guys escape from one shelter to another shelter...but wouldn't they just be followed there by zombies as well? 5. At worst, zombies breach the shelter and everybody, or almost everybody dies (though the sympathetic ones might yet make it to some other refuge...where they STILL have to just keep zombies out).
But within those awful constraints, there's so much fun to be had: the jump scenes when Zombies burst through doors or out of shadows, the "will they get in" suspense of that endless pounding on doors, the creativity of filmmakers trying to find new, even sillier ways to kill zombies, the go-to-town delightfulness of absolute mayhem in the costume and make-up department. The creepy deaky music... every zombie movie checks the same boxes, not unlike James Bond movies.
Meanwhile, many '80s Zombie movies (Return of the Living Dead Trilogy in particular) are just goofy.
So, here are the best/most enjoyable zombie movies I've seen so far.
Creepiest: Lucio Fulci's "Zombie 2/Zombi" (1979) - the zombies in this one were the creepiest, and the atmosphere was the most ominous - which is the best you can hope for in a good zombie movie. They were so slow, yet that made their catching the good guys seem even more inexorable. The last-stand in a makeshift hospital building was thrilling, the zombies had this cool way of taking a while to die and fall over, even after you shot them in the ahead, as if they were trying to decide whether to die or to just keep coming after you. There's even some alright dialogue and !gasp! character development... Plus, before they get to the really scary stuff, there's an AWESOME Zombie/Shark fight. The undead vs. nature's purest killer. Sweetness!
(Warning: zombie)
Yeh!
This video gives the soundtrack: one of the best creepy ones, and shows how scary a slow zombie can be. So deliberate: so inevitable! Warning; a lot of gross footage in this tribute.
Most unique/interesting:
Day of the Dead - George Romero made this one: after first popularizing the zombie genre with "Night of the Living Dead" (1968, one of the creepiest zombie movies so far), making "Dawn of the Dead" in 1978 (maybe the best classic zombie movie; remade louder and grosser and more cynical in 2004) this one was both best and worst of the zombie genre: the scientist experimenting on zombies was interesting, and a gross way of bringing in more variations on the zombie legend. The characters were either cool or really really awful: the soldiers were some of the worst ass-munching stereotypes out there, but some of the other characters were likeable. The right people got theirs at the end. Bub is the coolest zombie out there: he's actually domesticated by the end of the movie, and demonstrates something close to feeling. Interesting take on the genre: like no other zombie movie I've seen. In fact, the central dramatic point of the film is the conflict between the people trapped in the military compound, rather than just being "run away from zombies. hide. hiding place compromised. run to new hiding place. lose a few people. repeat" the way most zombie movies go. Just for that, it's worth seeing.
28 Days Later: a modern zombie film:
it seems modern audiences don't have the attention span to allow menace to develop: the slow pacing of a movie like the 1968 Night of the Living Dead allows a lot of anxiety to build up before the climactic scene, but I guess somebody decided that modern audiences want the release without the build-up, so they just jump straight into the fast-paced stuff...and then have trouble building up any sense of dread later. The zombies can run. Fast zombies are more immediately terrifying, and seriously, they ARE frightening: the scariest zombies I've seen, but they don't make an impact as lastingly creepy as Lucio Fulci's ghoulishly slow zombies (second scariest, stay with you longer). Sorry. The scary thing about zombies isn't that the first one you see might run you down and get you. It's that if you see one, there are probably more nearby, and more, and more, and yeah, you could avoid them, but they're persistent, patient, and they don't stop, and if one of them gets its hands on you, you're probably done, so you can't let your guard down for a minute, and you better be sure there aren't any waiting behind the door on your escape route, and next time you look out the boarded-up window, there will be more waiting outside than last time you looked. On the other hand, 28 Days Later does have legitimate thrills.
before I go on too long, here's a history of the zombie genre: I still have a lot to see, but I've had myself a good start. Cheesy, but fun as heck!
Zombies. Go see one yourself. I recommend Fulci, or the original Night of the Living Dead.
'cause if you're gonna watch a crappy movie, watch a crappy zombie movies: crappy action, suspense, comedy, and drama films are just abominable: no fun to be had whatsoever, but with a crappy horror or zombie movie, you at least get the fun of some shameless attempts to frighten you, some fun make-up, and the joy of mocking the filmmakers if they fail to actually frighten you...and the fun of a good scare if they DO!
Oh by the way, one last thing:
Don't you love it when, at the end of the credits of a movie titled something like "Rock Zombie Elvis Impersonating Detective Agency From the Fifth Dimension and Their Loyal Zombie Space-Dog Poofnark... The Musical!", there's a little disclaimer: "Any resemblance to actual events is purely coincidental"
For the crime of being beaten by her husband, Choi Jin-Shil was sued by Shinhan Engineering & Construction Co.: she was hired to promote their company, but by appearing in public with burises on her face, she damaged the image of the company she endorsed. The Korean Supreme Court upheld their suit. (image from the story about the original filing of the suit, 5 years ago.)
That's right: Choi got sued for being a victim of domestic violence. And found responsible for damages to the company. And the supreme court upheld it. And Korea wonders why they are 68th in the world on the Gender Empowerment Measure, despite being 25th on the Human Development Index: a disparity of 43 places. This is an embarrassment Korea, and a despicable action by the company. Here's the company's page. I can't find their e-mail, so you'll have to phone them and tell them how you feel. They should have pressed charges against her husband for damaging their "property". Cripes.
and this: the La Meilleur building, and one of the more eyesorey eyesores in downtown Seoul,
and this: tossing a bone to the destroyed pimatgol with this mockery of the original back-alley (600 year history?...needs a 7-11)
I hate when Seoul's cool neighbourhoods get ruined by redevelopment or gentrification... in Dali (and that CHINA, folks, freakin' CHINA!) the municipal government has laws about certain neighborhoods, requiring new buildings to match the style of the old buildings, in order to maintain the local feeling, and a city that wants to be a world hub of everything can't even preserve one of the coolest alley networks in the city, and the kind of area that COULD BE MARKETED. Dumbasses.
