There’s been a riot of complaint about the trend in Korea of little local mini-marts run by the big chain stores, like Homeplus/TESCO and Emart. These little shops set up in plain-jane neighborhoods that have, well, not much in the way of mini-marts, and because of the name value and a slightly higher diversity...
Read more →Shiktakju is probably a nonsensical word in Korean, but I like the sound of it nonetheless. Shiktak means table, specifically the kind of table at which one eats. The suffix -ju denotes a kind of alcohol. Now, normally, it’s appended to the stuff from which the alcohol is made — baemju is snake liquor...
Read more →So Miss Jiwaku is taking a holiday from work, after leaving her last job. She said she wanted to try do at least one new thing a week, and I suggested that while she’s seen me brew up beers for a while now, she’s never done it herself. Why not try brewing a beer?...
Read more →I’ve had The Caryatids on my shelf for a while now, and have been trying to set aside time to read it. After all, Bruce Sterling was a formative influence on my own idea of SF, whether you can see it in my own writing. In a conversation the other night, somehow I kept...
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