Part 2: Batman v Superman v Just Making a Two Hour Trailer

Continued from part 1.

2. Zack Snyder's Best Talent Ruined This Movie

What are Zack Snyder's two best talents? He can make a trailer that stops the world. He is so so good at making action look really good. So darn good. The problem is, entire sequences of the film, and whole scenes, seemed designed more to provide setup for some killer snip that went into the trailer, than for actually being part of a scene that was good as an effective scene. The dream sequence with Trenchcoat Batman. The crayon "You let your family die" on a newspaper clipping (which, misleadingly, resembled the scrawl on Robin's empty uniform in the Batcave... seeming to reference a Joker who did not appear in the film). "The red capes are coming" (a line which didn't even make sense in the context of the scene) "The oldest lie in America is that power can be innocent" (good line, but untrue: it's easier to find records of the idea that the price of liberty is constant vigilance). The trailer-bait took me out of the movie, and frankly, it's hard to pull me out of a movie. I try to get carried away.

The films that got Zack Snyder this job were recreations of Watchmen and 300, which worked exactly insofar as they hewed closely to the original graphic novels. Dawn of the Dead was also a very good remake: it might be my favorite zombie movie. When he takes a story that is already laid out for him, and his only task is to make it look absolutely great, he completely nails it. Ask him to create a believable reality and set a story within it, and you get Sucker Punch.

Read that Critics Consensus summary twice.

Watch the movie again, with an eye for this: every scene in the first half of the movie scans the way you tell a joke: with a setup, and then a punchline. The punchline is either a zinger of a cool line (trailer bait), or a revelation of new information (clumsy plot advancement). Again and again and again. Many of the lines work, and the some reveals make you go "ooh!" ... but that isn't enough to comprise a good scene, and a story with great characters like Batman and Superman needs a good scene writer.

UPDATE: Here is a nice video I found after writing this, that hits exactly on the nose what I'm trying to say here.
 

What Snyder is doing would probably work on a comic page: the Walking Dead comics I'm reading also have a lot of scenes that seem written as build-ups to a good line or a reveal, but what works on a page doesn't work in film. I just watched Netflix's Daredevil, Season 2, with scenes full of revelations, surprises, and characters at plausible and interesting cross-purposes, with reversals that make sense. Seeing all that great writing just underscored how cheesy the few exchanges between Batman and Superman were.


Terse cheesy tough talk out of an 80s movie is a huge waste of two actors who, I think, could deliver very interesting performances of the characters. But not with Zack Snyder directing them like a movie trailer crossed with an MTV video.

And when he DOES try to write an actual exchange between them...



 It's hilarious. For all the wrong reasons.

I am incapable of watching a movie without noticing the music. Not that it was possible not to notice the music in this one. The entire score here also seemed made for a two-minute trailer. When the action was flying, those dramatic close-ups and slow-motion and ponderous music stuff made it feel like something Important was happening... but that portentious music never let up, to the point that everything was getting "Hey! Pay attention! This is profound!" treatment. As any student studying from a used textbook knows, when everything is underlined, nothing stands out anymore. The whole movie comes off as relentless and exhausting.

What I wouldn't have given for one clever, quiet scene as witty as this one, just for a break from Hans Zimmer launching BWAAMs at me.

One more thing about the music: when Hans Zimmer's overbearing score wasn't playing, for the background music in the mall where Lois got kidnapped, and for Lex Luthor's party, the music was done by a spoof lounge singer called Richard Cheese. Yes. A singer named Dick Cheese provided two songs for the Batman v Superman film. Now, the first time Dick Cheese worked with Zack Snyder it was in Dawn Of The Dead, where the song "Down With The Sickness" was the perfect meltdown song for a montage of claustrophobic people slowly going mad, while the song slowly disintegrated into f-bombs. These are substandard versions of jazz classics: even these would have been a step up. And a character even quotes one of them while threatening Martha Kent, as if they have thematic importance. If Zack Snyder is putting his buddies' crappy songs into the soundtrack, and nobody higher up put the kibosh on his bad choices, not only is Zack Snyder completely the wrong person for this job, but I'm beginning to doubt the whole extended universe's creative oversight. You'd think they'd have learned their lesson after giving Superman maybe a son in Superman Returns. This bodes very ill for the DC Expanded Universe.

Ben Affleck is an actor who is better or worse depending on what kind of writing he is working with. The only case more extreme is Nicholas Cage. So let's get the man an effing writer, and a director who understands how to do a scene, please!

PLEASE find a better show-runner for the DC Expanded Universe. Superman and Batman deserve it! I suggest Brad Bird, but I'm open to other ideas.


Conclusion in part 3 (yes, I get worked up about this)

Part 3: Batman v Superman v Prospects for A Successful Expanded Universe

Final installment: continued from part 1 - Zack Snyder vs. Superman, and part 2, Batman Vs. the Two Hour Trailer..

3. Grim and Dour Doesn't Work For Most Superheroes...

Everybody writing a script that breaks the fourth wall, because Deadpool made a lot of money, is going to discover soon that Deadpool didn't make a ton of money because he broke the fourth wall. It made a ton of money because it was exactly the kind of movie a Deadpool movie should be. It was as perfect a fit for that character as Christopher Nolan's films were for Batman. When other heroes who are not Deadpool try to be in a Deadpool movie, they will fail. If you tried to give Spider-man the same treatment Daredevil is getting on Netflix, it would be a train wreck and everyone would hate it.

Grim and dour works with a few superheroes. Batman. A nice, gritty Daredevil film could be really good, though unnecessary with the netflix series on. Ditto for The Punisher, if it's allowed to have an R rating. A gritty Wolverine could be awesome, depending on who plays him. The television Green Arrow is really working. Other superheroes will never fit into that tone. Thor is just too silly. Nobody wants to see a The Flash do an Oldboy-ish hammer fight scene. But for Daredevil, it's completely awesome. Warner had a ton of success, and made a ton of money, and got a ton of acclaim, for those bleak and gloomy and dour Dark Knight films. Because that's the kind of character Batman is. But Superman just isn't, and trying to play him that way was ill-advised at best, and a fatal mistake at worst. A grim Flash won't make it. I'm not sure if Wonder Woman will, but an Aquaman film that isn't even fun will be a really tough sell, because Aquaman's a tough sell to begin with. As Avengers 1 was the proof of concept for "phases," DC's film launching phase one cannot avoid comparisons with Avengers, and people came out of Avengers wanting to watch nine more films like that, thinking they'd probably be entertaining enough, because the actors were fun and watchable enough to fill in the scenes between the action set pieces. Nobody came out of BvS thinking it'd sure be awesome to endure eighteen to twenty more hours of loud, dour, and dumb.

You can make a movie for adults about Batman, because adults get the "he's only human" thing and appreciate the idea of human ability overcoming. Little boys like Superman, because nobody can tell him what to do, but he helps people anyway. To adults, Superman is kind of goofy, and adults are smart enough to recognize that Superman is too powerful, and sucks the drama out of a battle. A Superman aimed at adults is never quite going to work.

...And It's a Terrible Choice in the Long Term

But by making a Superman that doesn't appeal to kids, that I'd hesitate to bring my son to see, Warner Brothers is making a really, really stupid blunder. First, because that's not how Superman works, and they're turning their back on Superman's core demographic, and second, because kids today are the nerds of the future, and frankly, kids are way more loyal than nerds. Nerds are loyal to their characters, but they also have a very clear and specific idea of how their heroes should be portrayed on screen, and if you venture too far from that, they'll abandon you in the time it takes to record a butthurt youtube review. It is really really hard to build up goodwill among nerds (in such a way that general audiences will see your film too), and it is really easy to squander that goodwill. Compare that to kids, who, if you impress them, will beg their parents to bring them out to see the sequel in IMAX 3D, and want the entire set of toys and related merchandise for Christmas, and the halloween costume, and the underpants, and the coloring book, and the birthday cake, and then all that stuff again but slightly different when the sequel comes out.

Yeah, saying "Marvel is fun, DC is dark" is clearly a method of differentiating the two hero brands, and differentiation is good, I guess. But right now, the nerds of the future, with all their future disposable nerd income and future fierce nerd loyalty to their favorite nerd characters... are running around in Iron Masks and Hulk fists and Spider-man t-shirts and swinging Mjolnir hammers and Captain America shields, just like today's adult nerds ran around with toy lightsabers and Darth Vader masks and Superman capes. DC is not just leaving all that money on the table but surrendering it and future dollars to Marvel, by saying they're going to make superhero films for grown-ups. The farther you follow down the timeline, the worse an idea this is.

4. Setting Up an Entire Expanded Universe In One Film Is Simply Asking the Film to Do Too Much

This film introduced a new Batman, introduced him to Superman, required them to fight AND THEN become allies, introduced a new Lex Luthor, developed three antagonists for Superman - Batman, Lex, and Doomsday, as well as a new ally, Wonder Woman, while consolidating the universe's tone and introducing three new superheroes for future films, and giving Batman a reason to muster the Justice League while killing Superman. No wonder the film was bloated as anything: they gave it way, way, way too much to do. They crammed three or four films' worth of world-building and explaining and plotting into a single film.

Is Marvel's "Phase One" the only way to set up a cinematic universe? It's hard to say. But Marvel used four films -- Iron Mans 1 and 2, Thor and Captain America, to set up The Avengers. Four films of world building and character introductions, so that when Avengers came along, we could enjoy the ride instead of having to sit through reams of exposition. Particularly for characters like Thor, whose origins are kind of goofy, it helped not to have to explain that in the middle of setting up another car chase. Batman and Superman didn't need too much background explanation -- Superman already had his origin story and everybody knows Batman -- but does the casual fan care enough about Aquaman anyway? Or Cyborg? Letting Wonder Woman click through their clips was a clumsy and dumb way to tease future movies. That's the kind of stuff Marvel would have put in a post-credits stinger or a DVD easter egg.

Avengers knew they had something good when Iron Man did well, and Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark left everybody wanting more. Only when Iron Man was a smash did they know they could swing for the fences with Avengers. Who is the insanely watchable sparkplug that will keep Justice League team scenes popping? There'd better be one, because a lot of people only go to films that give them characters they actually want to hang out with. From what I've seen so far, Superman's not that guy.

If I were in charge of the DC universe, there would have been a Batman solo film before BvS to establish Batman. Maybe also either a Wonder Woman or Flash film. There would have been a Batman vs. Superman film where they slugged it out, and gained each others' trust. THEN there would have been a Dawn of Justice film where they meet Wonder Woman, and Lex Luthor starts trying to lead a public backlash against superheroes. Maybe Flash or Green Lantern is the surprise reveal when Doomsday attacks instead of Wonder Woman. IF or AFTER fans have bought into the idea of a justice league film series, maybe Green Lantern (who has SO much backstory about the Green Lantern Corps to cover he's a difficult hero to put on film) gets a film, and if we can find someone who is as fun to watch as Robert Downey Jr. to play The Flash and/or Green Lantern, and send sparks around the room to drive Batfleck nuts the way Iron Man antagonizes Captain America... then we've got the basis for a nice, fun string of films I'd pay money to see. If the Batman solo film is completely huge, then Flash's film goes before BvS instead of after, or between BvS and Dawn of Justice.


Now, I’ll just check off the complaints I’ve read in other places, but I definitely agree with.

• First half was fragmented and nonsensical
• Dream sequences didn’t serve the story in any way (I hear it hints at sequels... I don't care. Sequel-hints are only allowed if they also advance this story.)
• Lex Luthor’s motivation was never made clear
• Lex Luthor’s entire exploding wheelchair subplot was extraneous: seeing Metropolis in ruins was already plenty motivation for Bruce Wayne to go after Supes. Lex could have vanished from the first half of the movie, and the movie would have been shorter, but not poorer. He could have vanished from the second half and only Doomsday's appearance wouldn't have happened. Which would have been OK, because it's Batman v Superman, not Batman v Superman v Doomsday.
• Lex Luthor is dumb. Using special bullets that can only be traced to Luthercorp in a move to set up Superman, and then using a special fancy wheelchair that could surely also be traced to him, in his bomb plan, seems to me like a detective skills test for Batman. Which Batman failed.
• Batman, The World’s Greatest Detective, wouldn't have failed that test. He'd have figured out what Luthor was up to faster than Adam West’s batman figuring out one of The Riddler’s riddles by playing word association with Burt Ward. This is the one big hole in the portrayal of Batman in this film: he's a meathead.
• The writing on the returned insurance checks resembled the writing on Robin’s costume, which seemed like a connection in the trailer, but wasn’t. I hate misleading trailers. Really hate them.
• Why did Lois Lane throw the spear in a pool?
• How did Lois Lane know she had to retrieve the spear...which she had just thrown into the pool?
• Why would J Jonah Jameson (just kidding I know it was Perry White) refuse Lois Lane a helicopter for a story, but give it to her when she said it was NOT for a story?
• Why could Batman find Martha Kent, but Superman couldn’t? Especially when he could locate Lois in half the time it takes to fall off a building.
• When did Lex Luthor figure out Superman was Clark Kent, in order to kidnap his mom?
• Why does Superman waste 20 seconds smooching Lois Lane while Batman and Wonder Woman are in mortal peril from Doomsday?
• Many of the scenes in the first half of the film could have been re-edited in any order without changing the movie significantly.
• Could teasing the upcoming justice league movies have been more clumsy and heavy-handed (click click click)?
• Why didn’t Superman give the Kryptonite spear to Wonder Woman, who doesn’t get killed by Kryptonite?
• Why didn’t Batman make something deadlier and easier to handle than a spear out of the kryptonite? Like a brass knuckles knife? Or some bullets?
• Why did Lex Luthor think making an unstoppable death monster would be a good idea in any way whatsoever? A smart Lex Luthor would have gotten control of that ship and then hidden it, and learned every secret of Kryptonian tech he could from it.
• If Batman had killed Superman, could Wonder Woman and Batman have beaten Doomsday on their own, and if not, how fucked would the entire planet have been? Lex is way too reckless here to pass as the smartest human alive.
• Nobody in America says that power can be innocent, or has for long enough that it is the oldest lie in America. Nobody ever says that. Except Lex Luthor, in order to say it is a lie. Zack Snyder or his writer is just writing whatever shit comes into his head.
• A plot as clumsy, and easy to connect back to Luthor, as kidnapping Martha Kent? The Lex Luthors I love are way more subtle than obvious tricks like this and the exploding wheelchair.
• Lex Luthor is more frightening if he is more clearly in control of his faculties, more calculating, in my opinion. He'd scare me more if he were together enough to actually deliver a 40 second speech at a gala in his honor.
• How is it that Superman seems to be finding out just now about the existence of Batman, who appears to have been doing his thing for a long time?
• Batman is killing people. Nobody could have survived a few of those explosions.
• What about Superman and his behavior (vanishing, sulking, brooding, wrecking entire city blocks) would make people want to build a giant statue of him after the people looking for him destroyed a whole downtown, instead of, say, a memorial to the thousands of people killed in the battle of Metropolis? That Superman allowed a statue of himself like that to go up and overshadow the dead, explains to me why many people don't like him.
• Seriously, Superman didn’t even clean up the Kryptonian ships he smashed? No wonder there’s a public backlash against him.
• This article is on the mark as to how badly the film treated its women.
• The ways they referenced The Dark Knight Returns did not have enough respect for that piece of comic history. Bruce Wayne tosses off the line "We've always been criminals" as a throwaway rather than as the pivotal moment of the end of the age of costumed heroes. There is no context for the lines he says to Superman about "the world only makes sense if you force it to"... many of the tricks he used to fight Superman were from that series as well, but Zack Snyder just didn't demonstrate that he understood what made that story so good, when he copped its ideas.

We are having some serious fridge logic issues here. You know, as well as those fundamental ones. I’m even going to go as far as to say George-Lucas-misreading-Star-Wars-fans-level problems, where he misunderstands what these heroes are about so badly that fans are going to turn on him.

I've predicted before, and I haven't seen anything to change my mind yet, that I still think when the world gets sick of comic book movies, DC is going to catch the backlash, the same way DiCaprio caught the Titanic backlash, but Kate Winslet didn't. When fans abandon superhero films en masse, it still looks like DC will take the biggest hit. And that'll be a shame, because Batman looks great on film, and Wonder Woman deserves better, and little kids around the world deserve there to be awesome Superman films being made every few years.

OK. It's all out of my system now. Carry on as you were, fellow fans!

Eulogy for The Marmot's Hole: The Official End Of The K-Blogosphere

After four years or so with the same layout, I've been making small tweaks to the blog and the sidebars: the names appearing there will be changing. If you know a blog or podcast that deserves a place on my sidebar, please let me know: I'd hate to be like one of those blogs I used to snicker at, with three-years out-of-date blog links in the sidebar (says the guy who just yesterday removed the link to ROKetship, who repatriated in 2011 or so).

Last December, something important happened in the "Korea-blogosphere" or "K-blogosphere." K-blogosphere is a term first used by GI Korea in a comment at Metropolitician Michael (now Dr.) Hurt's blog (here - sez google). I used it a lot myself around 2008 and 2009, when I blogged the most. It was a word that imagined there to be a community of Korea bloggers, who were connected, and that those connections meant something. One could (or at least, I did) talk about the "K-blogosphere" as if it were an organism, the way many Korea-bloggers like to talk about "Korea" as if the country were a character in a drama.

At that time, there were a handful of blogs that one could probably refer to as the go-to Korea blogs: a group of blogs that referred to each other, and that everybody kind of assumed everybody else was reading. We even met up sometimes. We teamed up on projects like The Hub of Sparkle. You could rattle off their names. Zenkimchi. Expat Jane. Scribblings of the Metropolitician. Korea Beat. The Grand Narrative. The Marmot's Hole. Gusts of Popular Feeling. Brian in Jeollanamdo. ROK Drop. A little before my time were The Big Hominid and a couple of others.  K-pop K-blogs created their own little ecosystem, led by Dramabeans and Allkpop and Eat Your Kimchi. Outside those "big ones" there were a swack of others that were a little less famous, but part of the web of connection, linked on the sidebars and in articles.

As time went by, more blogs, both "big" and "small" fell defunct, the bloggers repatriated or started repeating themselves or moved on to other projects or had kids, changed jobs, and got busy. Or the commenters went berzerk. Or people eventually noticed they sucked, or the authors found better ways to get attention/notoriety. A few bloggers got harassed and bullied into removing their blogs.

The very idea of a K-blogosphere has always had its skeptics. A few commenters, one who is a good friend now, always argued it was a stretch to call K-bloggers a community. This became more and more true as tumblr, twitter, reddit, Facebook groups and pages, vlogging and podcasting all came into their own, and each developed its own niche, and all the "original K-blogs" that vanished were replaced by newer blogs. Finally, there wasn't really a K-blogosphere anymore, but many. The tumblr k-blogosphere. The social justice K-blogosphere. The teaching K-blogosphere, the K-pop one. The foodie one. The military/security one, and they intersected less and less. Somewhere around the time ATEK imploded, I became disillusioned of the idea expat teachers could align their scattered interests. Likewise, I stopped believing expat blogger community could be called into existence simply by using the term K-blogosphere a lot. Little knots of convergence would remain, but social media seemed to supply quicker, richer connections, and seeking "likes" "shares" and "upvotes" was more fun than taking the effort of writing out blog posts and hoping for comments. Eventually, the very idea we needed a K-blogosphere kind of dissipated. Or maybe I just got married and decided to invest my energy in a different set and type of connections. I won't rule out that I'm just out of touch now, but I'm unwilling to participate in That. Facebook. Group. just to get dialed back in. So be it.

Through all that, there was one go-to, one lodestone in the ever-changing Korea blogosphere. Or maybe it was the last tent peg stopping the entire tarp from blowing away. For everyone who'd graduated Dave's and gotten bored of those Facebook groups where the new wave of teaching first-and-second-years k-eep k-omplaining, there remained The Marmot's Hole.

One of the original K-bloggers, Robert Koehler's blog went through a number of phases, but spent a longer period with a higher level of sustained output, popularity and relevance than any other Korea blog. And really, it wasn't even close. Robert Koehler has been cited by more major western news sources than any other Korea blogger and over a longer span of time, and he has also had more foreign journalists commenting and visiting his page. I don't think there is anybody who would dispute that. In December, The Marmot announced his retirement from blogging, and the last intersection of the increasingly dispersing venn diagram of Korea blog niches vanished. With The Marmot's retirement, I don't think the idea of "the big k-blogs" exists, or is a useful term anymore, and if it hasn't been for a while (probably the case), this is the locking of the door as it shuts.

It was a great run though, so my hat is off to The Marmot, Robert Koehler (you can see what he's doing now by following his photography tumblr). Everybody blogging in Korea owes him a debt, so thanks for the links, the fun, and for being the biggest tree in the wooly ecosystem that was the K-blogosphere for so many years.

Where to now? Who's to say? Now that all the touchstones have been pulled up, I think everybody's going to crawl further into their little niches. Nobody will be filling The Marmot's shoes. Dave's, Facebook and Reddit aren't generating the combination of diversity, cumulative knowledge of commenters and liveliness found at The Marmot's Hole. I expect things to continue fragmenting, and I expect that the best thing I get out of blogging (as has been the case for a few years now) is no longer some measure of fame (snicker) but the chance to send up a flag to find some small number of interesting, like-minded people to find me.

The Marmot's Hole is gone. I am sad that the archives have been pulled offline, for the sake of history. The other legacy I hope continues is this: The Marmot never claimed to be an expert, and often said that the longer he spent in Korea, the less he knew. I hope that kind of humility and uncertainty remains an undercurrent in the attitudes of future K-bloggers.  It's sure nicer to read than the pretense of unearned authority. But I'll take curiosity over the fear of saying anything substantive, if it comes to that. As for the comment boards... they're probably gone forever, and I don't think they're coming back.

Good luck in the future, Mr. Koehler.

The Comfort Women Deal A Month Later: Nothing New, Still Gross

When news of the latest "Final deal" regarding the Comfort Women came out on December 28, I wasn't as excited as a few of my Facebook friends. Sadly, my initial "Wait and see" reservations proved correct as the story soured faster than milk and pickle juice.

This topic is overwhelming to write about, because writing about any one aspect causes every single other thing to rush out for inclusion as well. It's like drinking a cup of jello: poke. Nothing. Poke. Nothing. Bigger poke. Omygoodnesseverythingiscomingatoncewhatwasithinking? Plus, no matter how carefully I write this piece, everything I omitted for simplicity or brevity will get thrown in my face in the comments anyway. It's daunting, and I'm frustrated at yet another apology doomed to be rejected both by Korea's and Japan's publics, followed by further recriminations, deepening grievance and apology/insincerity fatigue that will make it harder for both sides to offer and accept the next (hopefully final) apology, when or if it ever comes.

Source

More after the break.

Thoughts on Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Spoilers, durr.

There was a Star Wars movie out, did you hear?

It was pretty good, and it's making tonnes of money, so... there's that. I finally got to see it 10 days or so after it came out, thanks to report cards and stuff, but I liked it very well when I saw it.

There are spoilers in this article... but really, this long after the film came out, if you still haven't found a way to see it, I don't feel that bad about spoiling it for you. And if you're mad about spoilers this long after a film opened, next time take that energy you're using to be mad, and apply it to getting your butt to a cinema.

Late late screenings: worth it. And better, so that I don't have to take time away from the kid I should be hanging out with.

Juniorseyo watching Star Wars: He loved the original film "A New Hope"/Episode 4, and wanted to watch it again the weekend he first saw it. However, he hasn't wanted to watch it again since, so I'll wait till he's older before dropping The Empire Strikes Back.

Best thing: The three young heroes.

Give him his own spinoff movie: Poe Dameron, Oscar Isaac's ridiculously watchable, likeable pilot. He's assured and confident and high-spirited, like the resistance's best pilot probably really would be. He's the one I finished the movie wanting to hang out with.

But John Boyega! Yes. I like him a lot. Go see him in Attack the Block, a fantastic monster movie. He completely commands the screen.

I.New.Seoul.Slogan.Disappoint

I.Seoul.U.  World Taekwondo Federation.

How did we get here? Sometime in August, I heard Seoul City was taking submissions for a new slogan. Because Hi Seoul was three or four years old, and everybody knows branding works best when the brand image regularly changes into new and inexplicable images and ideas. Already then I winced in expectation of a new slogan choosing process that would be awful and annoying at every step of the way. I wish my call hadn't been so dead-on.

Happy Back to the Future Day!

Yes, it's already October 21 in Korea.

Too bad it's a Wednesday. If it were a Friday, we could call it Marty McFlyday (get it? get it?)

Anyway, today is the day Marty McFly was supposed to arrive in 2015.

We don't have mass market hoverboards. Only fancy rich-people ones.
Though the ones we DO have can go on water.
We don't have self-lacing shoes, or self-fitting or self-drying jackets.
We are still using our hands to play video games.

(hello, young Elijah Wood!)

We can't hydrate a pizza in five seconds.
We can't power our houses with compost (though it's probably best we don't have fusion reactors in every household)
And I can't banter with Max Headroom in an 80s cafe.

We DO have huge wall-sized TVs.
We DO have drone cameras that can record news events.
We DO have shops and cafes where you can order stuff without talking to a human.

Meanwhile, the Back To The Future team didn't imagine terrorism, smartphones, selfie sticks, or social media, beards or skinny jeans.

So... I'm going to go legally obtain a digital copy of Back To The Future 2 sometime today, and go get nostalgic. Happy back to the future day, folks.

That amazing Star Wars Music

Subtitle: aw heck, why not make it a blog post.

Somewhere around 2011, thoughts that would have become blog posts suddenly became long-form Facebook updates. I have decided to make them blog posts again. It's easier to find them back.

I am currently re-watching the Star Wars trilogy. The original trilogy. I'm glad I was a kid when the original trilogy was still heavy in the pop culture consciousness -- I'm very glad my first experience with Star Wars wasn't the three prequels. I'm not quite old enough to have seen the movies in the theater, but when I was in Kindergarten, one of my classmates used to smash the structures other classmates would build out of cardboard bricks...

source

While shouting "Return of the Jedi!" AND he had a Return of the Jedi lunchbox. And we rented Star Wars not long after we got our first VHS machine.

As Disney is winding up their pop-culture machine to unleash the Star Wars hype dynamo, they are doing a pretty good job of feeding the beast and letting fan excitement drive it, rather than using too heavy a hand. They are experts at playing their cards well.

But even as those silly star wars viral videos come out (chipmunks) (roadside crash) (Jedi with a gopro) (death star over San Francisco) (Matthew McCognschwarzeneggerghey watches the trailer), the fact remains, and it's something I only realized on these latest re-watchings. If you watched Star Wars as a kid, all you need is this:

That opening hit, the noise and the trumpet: by the time those 6 and a half seconds of fanfare go by, I'm ready for fun and adventure, and the main theme hasn't even started! So... read as many whiny blogs as you want, hate George Lucas as much as you like, snicker away that Lego Count Dooku looks eerily like George Lucas...

no seriously, look at him! The version in the Lego Star Wars animated films is seriously eerie

but after all the griping and equivocating, all it takes is six seconds of trumpets and friends, I am in.

And, for fun, here are my Star Wars and other extended universes prediction:

Star Wars: The Force Awakens will be much much better than the prequels and will do really well, though

The sheer density of Star Wars properties lined up for release will lead to fatigue before the sequel trilogy is finished. A star wars film every 18 months will wear us out. ANYTHING every 18 months would wear us out. Even Captain Jack Sparrow, who ruined Johnny Depp's brand at least as much as Tim Burton did.

The Han Solo prequel will be either incredible or awful, with no middle ground (I think it will be awful, and they shouldn't try, for the same reason I think nobody should make a biopic of Freddie Mercury: how on earth are you going to duplicate what everybody knew the first time they saw it, was unequivocally a lightning-in-a-bottle perfect alignment of forces. Chris Pratt deserves his own character, and Harrison Ford's Han Solo should be like Al Pacino's Michael Corleone and Michael J Fox's Marty McFly: so definitive nobody should bother trying to touch it).

Disney's Marvel Universe will also continue doing well until superhero fatigue is in full swing (Thanos, because he looks ridiculous off the comic page, might be the straw that breaks the camel's back, as Marvel slowly pushes back the limit of exactly how ridiculous they can make their films before they lose the suspension of disbelief),

But DC's Batman/Superman film, or the Justice League film that's coming after it, will catch the full brunt of the superhero backlash - just please give us one good Wonder Woman movie and one good Black Widow (or Scarlet Witch, or Ms. Marvel, or even She-Hulk) movie before everybody starts canceling Phase Three of their extended universes and starts re-making Die-Hard, please!

As for other stuff... I like Prince's new album, Tame Impala's new album, Destroyer's new album, and Beach House's new album. Go listen to them. 

August Recap at Roboseyo

Earlier this year I said to myself, "Self, if you can't write three blog posts a week like you did back in 2008, you can at least write one a month." Only to fail at doing so. And you know, these days I'm teaching at a university, which means I just had two months off, and still couldn't manage a blog post.

But whatever readers I have are at least used to that by now. Finishing a masters' degree in Korean Studies managed to make me want to write the kinds of blog posts I don't have the time to pull off anymore, with a three-year-old running around making me laugh instead, and jumping on my lap at the computer desk and demanding to watch cat videos.

So here's what's been going on this summer, and some of the year before that, which almost got on the blog, or turned into a Facebook thingy instead.

Mr. Robot is a very very good TV series. Here is the best song from the soundtrack so far (though there have been a whole bunch, and I love a show with a good soundtrack.)

Have barely seen any movies in the theatre, though my son loved "Inside and Out".

One thing I love about that boy is where his heart is. He loves his friends a little too vigorously, but when we watched the Toy Story trilogy together this summer, his spots of concern and worry were all around Andy being separated from his toys, and from his toys not being able to be close to the person they love. Now, you may not have noticed this while watching them, but the Toy Story films (especially 2 and 3) are all about growing up and moving on. Be careful. Those movies are a minefield of nostalgic longing for being a child again, in the best possible way. That theme is hard for a 3-year-old to get, for obvious reasons. As far as he's concerned right now (and he's said so) the best possible thing in the world would be if he and daddy and mommy could all live forever so that we could all live together all the time. Yet when Andy gave his toys to little Bonnie (embedding disabled), because he knew she would love them, and introduced them in a way that affirmed, celebrated, and also put an ending punctuation mark on the years he'd loved them, there my little boy was crying with me, happy that the Toys had found a new person who would love them, and satisfied that (though through the first two movies, he'd nearly cried with anxiety that the toys wouldn't find Andy again) it was now alright for Andy to say goodbye to his toys.

And if you've never cried at the same spot of a movie as your kid, well, that's something to put on your Dad bucket list, I guess.

The Tower Of London scene in Minions was pretty great too. Especially the Hair reference.

We went to Canada and I got to introduce my son to most of the extended family. There were a few people it hurt to miss (sorry Heather and Melissa, Neil and Heather D) and some I wish I'd gotten to spend more time with (well... pretty much everyone, but a few in particular). My son got to meet his great grandmother, and that was really special.

Thirteen-hour-flights with a three-year-old are hard. Especially when the in-flight movies are a weak weak lineup. Insurgent is a terrible movie. And I'm predisposed to liking young adult fiction, because it's my (no longer) secret guilty pleasure.

The 70th anniversary of Korea's liberation from Japan passed without any change in the ugly state of Korea-Japan relationships. I enjoyed this panel discussion about it, though it's very much from a US perspective. I'm still working on a blog series about that, and it's getting closer to the point where I'm ready to start stitching together blog posts. Bear with me. Or don't. Whatever.

I remember once when one of those "jaded expat" blogs complained, "Every time you turn on the TV it's nothing but stuff about how Korea's the greatest country and every other country sucks" and a blogger I admired responded, more or less, "I don't know what channel you're watching, but when I turn on the TV, I usually see people singing."

I liked that response, and it stuck with me. But now I'd have to add cooking to that. There are so many cooking shows I don't know what to say. Particularly coming back to it from two weeks in Canada, and realizing that Canada (or at least the way my people live in Canada) just isn't a food culture the way Korea is. I can't imagine my Canadian family planning a trip around the meals they'll eat at a lineup of famous restaurants and amazing foods, the way my Korean family does when they travel. That's not a knock on Canada -- I loved some things about being back in Canada. Especially driving through the countryside, but it was a different way of living with food than I've gotten used to. That said, I'm lucky to be living in a part of Seoul where I can indulge that.

We brought back the nastiest beast of a cold from Canada. My son has basically been coughing for a month now. And I've been coughing for three weeks. And my wife has been coughing for two. Somebody send help!

I was looking through the lego section of a toy department (because that's a thing I do now. No more hot trendy restaurants for me. It's all about the train sets now), and I found this. Lego Korean coast guard. Or ... off-brand lego, stuck in with the lego sets.

Why yes, that's Lego Korean Coast Guard. With names and everything (click to enlarge).

And yes, they seem to be guarding two smallish islands out in the sea. Wanna hazard a guess which two they're meant to be? (I know, I know. I just can't resist. It's like a scab I have to pick.)

And, finally, at Children's Grand Park, there is a children's museum called "SsangSsangNaRa" or "Imagination Land"

South Park references aside, Imagination Land is the best indoor place to bring your kid in the whole damn city. On the weekends it's crowded (what isn't?), and parking is a real beast, so go early (10am opening), but for 4000 won you get three stories of creative and learning play that's richer and better than any kid's cafe that's two times the price (if you have to buy food) or four times, and has a time limit (as they all do). It's so great there that I almost don't want to tell my blog readers about it, so that it's less busy for me, but who am I kidding? The secret is clearly already out.



So... go there and have fun. The only drawback: it's a bit of a walk to get to anywhere with decent food. Also: DO NOT eat the sausages at the little food stands near the entrance. Just. Don't.

Tomorrow my classes start again. Stay well readers. I'll be back... when I'm back.

Mirror Images, or The State of English Language Journalism In Korea

I am intrigued by the way these two articles came across my feed around the same time. Because they are the mirror images of each other.

Hey everyone! Foreigners are all like this!
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2015/07/162_183210.html

(that was part two. Part one of Hey everyone! Foreigners are all like this! is here: http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2015/06/162_180778.html)

And then:

Hey everyone! Koreans are all like this!
http://www.koreaobserver.com/korean-social-etiquette-equates-to-mine-mine-mine-by-not-a-russian-prostitute-37962/

I'd love to lock the two authors in a room together, although I have to give the author of the first article more of a break than the second, because living in the country one was raised in, and not seeking out the company of people with different backgrounds than oneself is much more forgivable than moving overseas and doing the same. And frankly, his take on his own culture is about as clumsy. http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2015/04/162_160698.html Responsibility is squarely on the shoulders of the Korea Times editor here.

Bottom line: these are both blog posts that are not worthy of publication in places purporting to be media outlets. I'm fine with "Koreans are all rude" on a blog post. Lots of people agree with the sentiment, and that's allowed. But it's not news. There was no investigation going on (unless chatting up the disgruntled corner of expat bars counts as journalistic research now), and the article was so all over the place, nothing useful can be made of it anyway, except catharsis. Jumping from language to parking to subway pushing to sidewalk blocking to thoughtless comments to enforcement of public smoking laws places this in blog rant turf, not op/ed page territory. And that the author wouldn't even put her full name to it again, suggests it belongs on an anonymous tumblr or something, where I would happily ignore it, instead of holding it up to the standard from the site's "about page" -- "The Korea Observer is an online newspaper founded in February 2013 with the support of the Seoul City government by award-winning investigative journalist Lee Tae-hoon with the motto, “Be the voice for the voiceless.”" Anonymity in journalism is OK with me. When you're criticising the president and people with earpieces are hanging around in the park across your street and your writing partner was already arrested this month. But anonymity for "Koreans are rude y'all!" makes it into a mockery.

Complaining that koreans are rude is not giving voice to the voiceless. I've been hearing that voice bouncing around the online expat echo chamber for a decade now, and this piece conveniently gathers every gripe into one place, but has added nothing new other than that. White gripes about Korea are not the voiceless that need outlets like Korea Observer. Get your shit together, Award-winning investigative journalist Lee Tae-hoon!

Both articles are great examples of why it's important to talk with, and listen to the views and opinions of the subjects of one's writing: "Laura" would have found most Koreans are just as offended as she is by the breaches of etiquette she writes about, and Mr. Choi would have been quickly disabused of his stereotyped views of Korea if he'd been listening to the foreigners he met, or meeting more than just a handful who'd "drunk the Korea Kool-aid" (which happens).

So... while we could come up with a mirror image list to go with my "Five signs the author of the article you're reading doesn't know much about Korea" to use for articles like "Differences Between Koreans and Foreigners," (wouldn't be hard, and both lists boil down to this: look for evidence that the author has actually consulted with a variety of people in the group they're writing about, and respects them as humans) for now, let me just mention that e-mailing Mr. Choi with angry rants, or bugging him online, is extremely unlikely to disabuse him of his stereotyped views of foreigners, and perhaps will only succeed in replacing his clumsy stereotypes of foreigners with negative ones, and for people like "Laura" ... I regularly say that it's incredibly unhelpful to say "If you don't like it, go home"... but there are in fact times when, if Korea really does make a person as unhappy as all this, the exit option IS probably the best. Either that, or it's time to go soak in a jimjilbang, climb a mountain, eat some great Korean food, and hang out with people who don't complain. They exist. Or start a complainey blog. That's what blogs are for.

Anyway, see you all again in 14 months, the next time two equally dumb articles from opposite sides are published close to each other, and we can go around this hamster wheel again.

Kingsman, the Preposterawesome Scale, and The Welcome Return of Cufflink Lasers

I just watched Kingsman: The Secret Service, the film responsible for the surge in popularity of double-breasted suits in Korea (it was HUGE here).

I enjoyed it a lot. It's everything you want a silly escapist spy film to be (though with more F-words than the 007 franchise led us to expect). A movie like this will always have a chance of doing well, because as James Bond, and every major male film star of the last century except Bruce Willis shows us, people look awesome when they do awesome things in formal wear. (Clickbait list: the 30 best suits in film).

source

Kingsman is also a great demonstration of what I call the preposterawesome scale.

The principle of the preposterawesome scale is similar to How I Met Your Mother's "Hot/Crazy Scale," as explained by Barney Stinson in his send-up of an incorrigible ladies' man.



Basically, the positive quality of "hot" must outweigh the negative quality of "crazy" when Barney calculates if he wants to date someone. Disclaimer: Barney is a satire, and also a character in a sitcom, and I don't recommend actually thinking of dating prospects in such a dehumanizing, reductive way (sorry, THIS GUY, you're doing it wrong).

But in evaluating an action movie that is being consumed for entertainment, it's a little more OK to be reductive. And my own theory about silly and unbelievable things in movies is the preposterawesome line. Basically, the more preposterous a thing is, the more awesome it has to be, for viewers to forgive the silliness.

Star Wars's laser swords and the idea of monks with telekinetic powers defending the galaxy from villains who build moon-sized ships with planet destructo-beams is forgivable, because light sabers are awesome and so are Jedis and space ship dogfights.

We (or at least, enough of us) forgive the ridiculous idea of giant robots from space that transform into vehicles and then transform back into giant robots carrying huge laser cannons... but who still prefer to beat the hell out of each other with fists and blades and grappling holds, because because giant robots grappling and punching and swordfighting is awesome! 

And of course the best way to steal expensive goods is with a fleet of supercars going at high speed. We went to seven movies about that, and counting (I think the Fast Furious brand might be the next James Bond -- if they manage the brand right, the well might never run dry) because car chases are awesome! Lightsabers are awesome. Neo dodging bullets is awesome, and the Agents are awesome, too. Liam Neeson romping through Europe killing people is awesome. Everything is awesome!



James Bond spent four decades -- from the 60s to the 90s, above the preposterawesome threshold. There are simple reasons for that. Take 18-35 year old men, whose tastes marketers care about more than any other, for some reason, and ask them to brainstorm all the awesome stuff they want to see in a movie, and you'd come out with the elements of a James Bond film. "Uh... spy stuff. Yeah. Spy tech is cool." "Yeah. And like, sweet sweet cars with like, lasers and missiles in them" "Oh yeah. That's awesome. And exotic places." "Yeah. Exotic places FULL of hot women." "Easy hot women." "I thought that went without saying. Hurr durr." So... when Q introduced the newest Aston Martin that turned into a spy satellite and cooked omelettes and washed your cat in the back seat while jetting out oil slicks at baddie cars, and was invisible and also actually an airplane, we loved it, because that's just plain awesome.

The preposterawesome scale is also why Austin Powers almost killed the James Bond franchise -- by doing the loving satire they did, they also sharply underlined just how preposterous James Bond films were from Sean Connery to Pierce Brosnan, and at the same time digital effects sucked a lot of wonder out of special effects, because instead of going "Wow! An invisible car!" We went, "meh. It's all digital these days." The preposterous rating went up, the awesome rating went down, and suddenly Pearce Brosnan style 007 films were below the preposterawesome line. Jason Bourne showed them a way out of the woods: finding the awesome in believability and good writing and visceral action and good acting rather than cool cars and exploding pencaps, but without that, Austin Powers would have been the satire that killed the franchise.

And since Jason Bourne, the preposterous end of the preposterawesome scale was dominated by superhero films and the occasional Mission Impossible sequel. Which is great if you like tights.

and who doesn't?
source

But as MacGuffins in superhero movies (I'm looking at you, Marvel) keep getting loopier and loopier  (gems that make The One Ring look like a paper airplane have been the power items driving the plots of Thor 2, Avengers 1, and Guardians of the Galaxy. This is what they're building up to. This.



Expect the remaining Infinity Gems to appear in future Marvel universe films, before Thanos, who looks like this, tries to collect them all in future Avengers sequels and end-credit teasers. Credit to Marvel for pushing back the line of what is too ridiculous for live action films slowly enough that nobody noticed that suddenly power scepters and infinity gems were part of a superhero's day's work.

Whether or not superheroes are your taste though, it's fun to see Kingsman, where the evil megalomaniac is regular old human being, with a regular old doomsday device that isn't a jewel that comes from comic books, eventually to be wielded by a twelve foot tall alien with grey skin. It has been long enough since Austin Powers that we are allowed to make silly spy films again without people saying "Oh, come on!" and I'm glad about that, as much as I enjoyed Daniel Craig's 007.

Kingsman delivers, and that's the best thing I can say about it. It is highly preposterous, but also highly awesome, and I am glad to have double breasted suits and battle umbrellas and cufflink lasers and microchips and secret underground fortresses full of henchmen and recipes for martinis back on the preposterous end of the preposterawesome scale again, rather than just charismatic actors wearing silly hats. So... watch Kingsman. It's fun.

Side note: in keeping with the preposterawesome line, I suppose you could also create the funnyffensive line for jokes -- people are a lot more forgiving of offensive jokes if they're actually funny (and if the comedian shows they're not on the side of the assholes). You are welcome to leave a comment and suggest other areas where thresholds like the preposterawesome and the crazy/hot line exist.

Sewol Disaster One Year Later: Still Waiting

It's a year after the Sewol Ferry disaster. Later today I'll walk around a few of the mourning and commemoration sites. Perhaps I will post photos if I deem it fit to take photos. Chances are good that I won't, because people deserve privacy for their grief. [Update: yeah. No photos.]

I wrote this last year, in the original aftermath, after visiting the memorial outside City Hall, which was there all the way from April until December, when they finally took it down to build the outdoor skating rink.

images from my previous Sewol article

Socially and culturally, it's been long enough to fairly assess some of the effects of the disaster here in Korea, and while some would say the one year anniversary is a crass time to do so, because of the families, others would say there isn't a better one. Put bluntly, the Sewol disaster chucked a pipe bomb into the national psyche, and everybody's been scrambling to return to normal, or re-assert the status quo. The status quo has been re-asserted, but those who like to kick back against the status quo are a little larger in number, and their grievance is a little closer to the surface, than it was before.

Here are some of the things that have happened since the disaster. This here is a good rundown as well. This one is a little more strident. Deservedly.

• The boat has not been raised.

• President Park is visiting Latin America rather than attending the Sewol one-year anniversary proceedings. You know your ratings are poor when even Arirang is reporting your low approval ratings. That's Arirang, whose slogan for a while may or may not have been "Wow! Bibimbap is delicious!"

(Hopefully Arirang won't get indicted for defaming the president.) In fact, given the way things have gone lately for critics of the president, I'd better take a moment to say I also think it's a great idea for President Park to leave the country on the one-year anniversary of the disaster that was the biggest embarrassment for the administration so far. (And that's despite the best efforts of everybody taking bribes. You know things are bad when you have to narrow your search terms down so much just to get a news link: Here are the results for "Korea president corruption scandal April 2015." To differentiate from the other corruption scandals.) Buggering off out of country is another in a long line of politically pragmatic or astute moves and/or/mostly non-moves. Really! It's a great idea, so that she won't be around and remind people how long it took for her to show up, and then how much longer to show leadership, and then how quickly before she and hers started shirking responsibility by burying their accusers under rhetorical, political and legal obstacles or rabbit trails again, after the original disaster. This is clearly a politically savvy move to get people looking forward to Korea's next president. Way to inspire hope and faith in Korean democracy, President Park! I hope she and her team get all the rewards they deserve!

• Investigations into the disaster have been mired in political and legal wrangling repeatedly, particularly when someone wanted to increase the scope of the investigation to anything broader than "let's pin as much blame as we can onto the people who are already in jail, and make sure to avoid any investigation that might discover that rabid deregulation of entire industries was the thing that allowed the Sewol to get so dangerously overloaded, or allowed it on the seas at all. Instead, the ruling party is trying to discredit the families of victims. 

• Korea's progressive party badly misplayed the hand it had been dealt, attempting to channel rage and anger over the Sewol ferry into success in the 2014 by-elections, but forgetting to attach a coherent vision and policy goals and, you know, have a platform other than "We're mad as hell, and we're not gonna take it anymore!" leading to a humiliating failure that's a black mark on the records of every progressive leader involved. Since that defeat, the Korean political left has returned to its usual habit of eating itself.

• This is just an eye test sort of judgment, but shit hasn't changed. Public safety crackdowns, if they happen, are pretty much headline bait, and not sustained enough to actually cause changes in behavior. Like using a flashlight to get rid of cockroaches instead of pesticide. The frequency of news stories about death or injury due to sheer negligence or disregard remains about the same. The leaders you'd expect to effect this kind of change seem mostly to be interested in covering their own asses. And buses run red lights and crosswalks, and people forget to put on their seat belts, and motorbikes go up on sidewalks of dive through traffic at about the same frequency as ever. It'd be nice to at least see leaders going through the motions of acting as if they were going to try to improve public safety, at least. Before the new showcase tower in Jamsil falls over or something. Korea is third in the OECD in work-related deaths. Traffic statistics are equally dismaying.

• The captain of the ferry was prosecuted, and they're seeking the freakin' death penalty for him, as if this is the thing that will expiate all the grief. You know, rather than tangible evidence of a deeper and more energetic regard for safety over speed and profit starting at the policy level and enforced right down to the rank and file. Which would take time... but again, it'd be nice to see our leaders going after that, rather than mostly just interfering with the investigation as if they have something to hide. (read the last half of this article for a description of what I mean). Now, I have more to say about the death penalty, but even all that aside, I think the death penalty is an embarrassing overreach and an example of populism in one of the very, very, absolute last places it belongs.

There's more, but what started as a messy failure at multiple levels leading to a needless, needless loss of lives, has resulted in a messy political mess that hasn't really accomplished much at all, other than undermining the faith of another generation in its elders to provide wise and long-seeing leadership. I would be happy if our young folks got angry instead of just discouraged, but we'll see how long that lasts. I'm surprised to hear just how jaded I am about this, because normally, in terms of social progress and the arc of history, I am very much an optimist. I do believe that even a messy situation that brings ugly things to light often ends up as a net good, because once ugly things are brought to light, people can start doing things about them. But that's not what I see this time, and it's fucking depressing.

If I were melodramatic, I'd say that every day, every year, every presidential term that goes by when we don't clean things up, root out the corruption and the complacent "it's OK" "just get it done" or "not my problem" attitudes that contributed to this, or at least advance another step in the process of doing so, we're killing these kids again, burying another class of school kids in a watery grave, or another dozen migrant workers under I-beams in an industrial accident, or poisoning another roomful of electronics company employees with industrial chemicals. It's not often that the cost of those kinds of attitudes gets highlighted so starkly, but as I wrote in my last Sewol elegy, we're still waiting for a miracle.

And it hasn't come yet.

Rest in peace, once again, children of the Sewol. May the heroes who push against the complacency and corruption yet arise, and may it take shorter than I fear it will, as the remnants of Grimy Old Korea die off, before proponents of Safe New Korea have their day.

Here are the closing words of my elegy for the Sewol, written (a little less than) a year ago. This is the promise we are waiting for those in power to make good on.

Maybe this tragedy, after so many ignored warnings, will finally be the violent turning of a new leaf. Maybe the shame on one side, and rage on the other, will finally stop settling for band-aid solutions and transmute into real change, real accountability, until Grimy Old Korea is a closed chapter, and public safety is no longer a luxury for the moneyed. That would be a different kind of miracle than we started off hoping for.

There was a promise implicitly made in Grimy Old Korea's heyday, that the nation under construction would be worth the work. That sacrifice and strain would mean future generations enjoy a better nation than the parents inherited. That was the deal. There is a yearning for Korea to be prosperous, but to round that out by also being compassionate, not just toward shareholders, but toward the strangers who live and die, grieve and starve, and still check nervously for Grimy Old Korea barreling toward them at every crosswalk.

I wish that the next generation of leaders, contractors and entrepreneurs would see their neighbors, and moreover their customers, tenants and passengers, as part of the great "We," not just during times of crisis and joy, but all the time. The delivery that we want right now is not the one that buzzed by on a sidewalk motorbike, with a metal takeout box that nearly clipped my son. We'd rather have those in power deliver on that promise made in the 60s and 70s, that one day we will be able to enjoy, in peace and safety, the fruit of the sacrifices and griefs we have been asked to bear for too too long. We've worked so hard and lost so much: why are we still so unhappy? Why do these things still happen?

The takeout delivery always arrives on time, but the delivery that really matters, has been delayed again and again. And with our yellow ribbons waving in the downtown, maybe that is the miracle we are still waiting for.

Pictures From The Old Camera

As I clear out the dropbox photo upload folder, and the iPhoto photo album (which is a pain in the ass to clean up), I come across many photos I took, planning to share on the blog, and then failed to share.

So, in order to empty out my pockets and finally delete the durn things, here we go... apologies if any are repeats.

A jaunty mannequin I like:

Taken this year: I can't believe people are still doing window cleaning and building work on these things. One of those cases where a method developed for a city with buildings that were four stories high just got carried over until buildings were way higher than the method was built for.

In case 치멕 (chimek -- short for chicken and mekju, or chicken and beer) wasn't a horrifying enough portmanteau, let's add "피멕" - Pimek (or Pi-mac) - short for pizza and chicken.

While we're at it, let's all look for menus featuring "NaMek" (Nachos and mekju), "Wimek" (Wings and Mekju) and... ugh. I have to stop.

Unfortunate name for a skin lotion:

From a christmas event. I got nothing.

Heck of a spelling for Cinderella.

Spotted on a mountain trail.

The projector that is supposed to project mysterious and mesmerizing patterns on the sidewalk of a plaza near Cheonggyecheon had some technical problems.

Something I love about Korea:

(spotted at the Daegu KTX station)

The best "rock & roll" pun in a restaurant name I've ever seen.

This made the 13-year-old in me giggle.

because it looks like a penis.

Proper subway behavior PSA. From years ago. Have things improved?

A few years old. The Hangul museum presumed anybody who'd walk by were Korean. But wrote the sign in English. Despite all the talk of global promotion, sometimes the people making signs and writing brochures accidentally tip their hands. Sigh.

This old man is the best.

Tee hee.

(Insert joke about firecrotch here)

This banana has clearly had enough.

Give a silly man a baby bjorn and this is what happens.

Give a silly man a prop-up baby chair and this is what happens.

My (now second) favorite bilingual restaurant name pun ever. It's "Maek-ju-nal-deu" which is one syllable different from the Korean spelling of MacDonalds ("Maek-do-nal-deu").

However, it is no longer my favorite restaurant name pun because I found a sausage and pork restaurant in Seodaemun named "Seo-dwae-ji and the boys" 서돼지 and the boys" -- SeoTaeJi is perhaps the most important Korean music star in K-pop history, and Dwae-ji is the Korean word for pig.


The very beginning of what would become my favorite coffee shop in the world.

Sorting the coffee beans so customers only get the best ones.

Storing the beans on the wall.

 Still run by this man, who is a hand-drip artist. I am so glad the place is doing really well.