이별
Posted on June 30, 2009
Filed Under personal | 3 Comments
This month’s theme in my life is 이별, or farewells. I spent the last evening in Korea — for this stint, anyway — with a couple of the closest friends I’ve ever had, and saw them off this morning. A few weeks ago, a very different 이별 made entirely of words and of emotions so enormous I cannot speak them in so frail a voice as bodies have.
A few weeks ago I wrote of grace, and of having grace in partings and in changes. I wrote lovely words, and strangely I have learned that when one speaks in pretty words, the universe listens, and readies a test. The universe smiles and asks, “How shall this little bold thing hold up to a test of his finest words?”
When there are tears, it is not a failing of grace. A quiet hour in thought is a necessary component of grace, and so is a few minutes alone with that most human experience, sorrow.
Not failings. They are symptoms of being human, is all, is all. Partings, longings, the vicissitudes of time and change. We are creatures that are brim-full with eternity, but breathe so very few breaths in our time here, and spend much of our brief lives tumbling through one change after another. With any luck, we find a grace and balance along the way, direct the fall, soar a little.
And smile, into faces that are leaving, and smile, and smile, and hope.
Time laughs, time swerves, and makes us dance in our descent. Time takes things away, the things and people we love, one by one.
Thus we are human. Thus we love so very hard, while we have strength and time to do so.
Books, Books, Books
Posted on June 28, 2009
Filed Under personal | 2 Comments
Orcs!
Posted on June 28, 2009
Filed Under (in korean), Korea, SF, popculture | 2 Comments
Argh!
Posted on June 27, 2009
Filed Under Ubuntu Trackin' | 4 Comments
Korean Headache
Posted on June 25, 2009
Filed Under personal | 3 Comments
Everything is Fake
Posted on June 24, 2009
Filed Under personal | 4 Comments
Not Quite Foucault, But…
Posted on June 23, 2009
Filed Under esl & other teaching, media | 12 Comments
Recently Published Stories
- "Lester Young and the Jupiter's Moons' Blues" -- podcast at Starship Sofa, read by JJ Campanella (25 March 2009).
- "Tian Ju Zhiao (The Teaching of the Lord of Heaven)." (Poem.) Diet Soap #3 -- Sabotage. (1 March 2009). Buy an electronic or print edition here or get a FREE PDF -- see here.
- "Cai and Her Ten Thousand Husbands." Apex Magazine (3 Feb. 2009).
- "Like, Stabbed by a Love Triangle, Dude," "The Xanax King and his Wife's Painted Hoo-Has," and "Homeless Bob and Lester the Black Guy" (creative nonfiction) and "Groan" (a poem) -- Outlanders zine published by Scott Burgeson.
- "The Country of the Young." Interzone 219 (Dec. 2008). Fictionwise eMagazine edition available here.
- "Dhuluma No More," read by David Munger. Podcast by Starship Sofa. (5 November 2008.)
- "Wonjjang and the Madman of Pyongyang," available in the annual Canadian SF anthology Tesseracts Twelve, edited by Claude Lalumière.
- "Dhuluma No More." Asimov's SF October/November 2008. (Fictionwise eMagazine edition of the magazine available here.)
- "Lester Young and the Jupiter's Moons' Blues." Asimov's SF, July 2008. (Fictionwise eMagazine edition available here.)- "Pahwakhe" -- Fantasy magazine, 21 January 2008. Or listen to the Podcastle Podcast here (from 2 May 2008)!
- "The Egan Thief" -- Flurb #4, Fall/Winter 2007.
- "Junk" -- Nature, Vol 448: 2 August, 2007. (PDF also available.)Recent Articles
- "Parasites in the Human Ecosystem." Cahoots, Summer 2009.- "SF in South Korea Today." The Shine Anthology weblog, 9 April 2009.
- "Men, Women, and Internet Trolls" -- the Winter '08 installment of my column "XY" for Cahoots Magazine, 15 Dec. 2008.
- "How Candle Girl and V Took on 2MB." Clarkesworld, October 2008.
- XY column installment: Why Are Women More Religious? at Cahoots Magazine. (Fall 2008)- "Fending Off Discontentment." The Korea Herald, 25 September 2008.
- "Another Undiscovered Country: An Analysis of the Effects of Culture on the Reception and Adoption of the Science Fiction Genre in South Korea Through The Examination of 21st Century Korean SF Cinema." (Alt. link for those without Hangeul on their PCs.) Presented at the 4th International Congress of Korean Studies.
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- "Planet Crazy" in Cahoots Magazine, Spring 2008.Grab Some Music
Korean indie rock with lost saxophone in tow:
- Product by Dabang Band (2004)
- Pig Over Seoul by Dabang Band (2002)Live acoustic/electronic ambient chillout:
- Live 1998 by ApocryphaCrusty, weird modern classical student compositions: - an assortment of compositions I wrote as an undergrad from 1995-1996.
If you're one of those people who is into owning the physical CD, Dabang Band's 2nd album, Product:
... is still available via YesAsia. I won't see a
centwon either way, but it's a pretty nice, ahem, product.-
Everything is Fake - June 24, 2009
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Not Quite Foucault, But... - June 23, 2009
I'm grading final exams from my Media English course -- where, unlike what the title might suggest, [...]-
Life in Orbit (meta4ickle) - June 22, 2009
Sometimes, you're grateful just to catch the skyhooks as they scream past. [kml_flashembed [...]-
I Even Remember My Teacher's Name... - June 18, 2009
To those of you who are teaching here, and given to shooting your mouth off, let this be a [...]-
On Engineered Obsolescence in Music Today - June 17, 2009
This afternoon, a music professor from my university took a few of us out for lunch. I was invited [...]
