It is to Flunk
I was grading a stack of student assignments — specifically, feedback on readings, which I make them do on the theory that it helps them prepare for discussions of the texts — when I ran across a particularly saddening passage in response to “The Multiculture,” an essay about Torontonian multiculturalism, which I’ll only paraphrase here:
If [...]
Hwang Shin Hye Band and Bulnabang Star Sausage Club — Live at SangSang Madang
This is a review of the 불나방스타쏘세지클럽/황신혜밴드 show at 상상마당 last night. If you’re interested in Korean indie music, here’s my skewed and fannish take, behind the cut.
A Random Linkdump and Concert Tonight…
No time to post anything too significant today, or for the next couple of days.
Oh yeah: this is late notice, y’all, but…
Hwang Shin Hae Band is playing tonight. No idea if there are tickets available but I’ll be there a few hours early, trying to get one! Show’s at 8, and here’s a map to [...]
Orcs!
One of the fascinating things that keeps coming up in my Korean lessons is the generation gap. It’s not that I was unaware of this before, but my tutor has made a careful point of noting when she shows me a word that older people either won’t find appropriate in speech, or which she considers [...]
Back in the [Korean Study] Saddle Again
Let’s see, in my notebook there are the following new vocabulary terms:
신상 정보: personal ID information
생물측 정보: biometric information
심리학: psychology
작업 멘트: pickup line
몸이 좋[지않]다: to [not] have a good body
핸드폰 번호 따다: to get [someone's] phone number
세계 구역기구: The WTO
합병하다: to take over [something], for example, the WTO taking over the UN.
세상: universe (to be [...]
On Roh’s Death, Steve Reich, and the Tao of Imagining Sisyphus Happy
I’ve been saddened by what happened recently in regard to ex-President Roh’s suicide. Not the suicide itself, or all of the political wrangling related to it.I’m saddened because I fear suicides will worsen here, for the next while.
Korea has a serious suicide problem. It’s the number one killer of people in their twenties, as many [...]
I’m'na Teach Yo Ass, and Yeah, You Welcome…
Friday last week was Teacher’s Day, but the day always takes me by surprise. Actually, it would have taken me by surprise anyway — my students sprung the biggest ambush on Thursday.
We were in my office, setting up for a video shoot for that class of mine that’s making a mockumentary about an English cult [...]
Recently Published Stories
- "Alone With Gandhari." -- Clarkesworld #42, March 2010. Podcast by Clarkesworld (read by Kate Baker), March 1st, 2010.
- "보살들." ("The Bodhisattvas", Korean translation by Kim Chang-gyu.) In 백만 광년의 고독 (One Million Light-Years of Solitude) SOAO Workshop anthology from Omelas, December 2009. (See Forthcoming Publications, below, for English-language original.)
- "Of Melei, of Ulthar." Clarkesworld, October 2009.
- "Lester Young and the Jupiter's Moons' Blues" -- podcast at Starship Sofa, read by JJ Campanella (25 March 2009). Reprinted in The Year's Best Science Fiction, Twenty-Sixth Annual Collection, edited by Gardner Dozois.
- "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). Now available in Descended From Darkness: Apex Magazine Vol. 1 edited by Jason Sizemore and Gill Ainsworth.
- "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.)Forthcoming Publications
- "The Broken Pathway." (novelette.) Forthcoming in The Immersion Book of SF Vol 1, edited by Carmelo Rafala, Spring 2010.
- "Sarging Rasmussen: A Report By Organic." (novelette.) Forthcoming in SHINE Anthology, edited by Jetse de Vries, Spring 2010.- "The Bodhisattvas" (novelette). Forthcoming in Subterranean Magazine issue edited by Jonathan Strahan, April 2010.
- "Dadeumie Sori", "Ode to the Competent", and "Tian Zhu Jiao" (poems). Forthcoming in future issues of Diet Soap.
- "Improperly Prepared Blowfish" -- Machine of Death, forthcoming.
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.-
Outsider Writing - March 6, 2010
Now that I'm back in Korea, and have a free morning, I'm just catching up on some blogs and fiction [...]-
Launch Pad Open to Applications - March 5, 2010
I blogged about my experience at Launch Pad here before, and most recently discussed it with a [...]-
Happy Birthday to... me. - March 4, 2010
This year is the year of the tiger, which is my sign in the Asian zodiac. That means, of course, my [...]-
The Hub of... Outmoded Software Shackles? - March 3, 2010
In one of her essays, Ursula K. Le Guin described a Native American culture (I think it was) in [...]-
Alone With Gandhari - March 2, 2010
As of right now, my story "Alone With Gandhari" is online as part of Clarkesworld issue #42. [...]
