I found this article, by a Philosophy professor who is also a boxer, quite interesting. I was thinking about recent comments Myoung Jae made about the worthiness of spending money on sports in some contexts. I think there may be something to it, but I also think of John Ralston Sal’s words; he complained that we spent too much of our government funds in Canada on big stars and artists, and did little-to-nothing to encourage local arts communities. Anyway, and interesting passage from the article: Americans for the most part live in a culture of release in which passion and …
Month: August 2004
Busy Busy Busy
The shops wouldn’t do binding by the time I got to them, so I couldn’t finish my present for Myoung and Mer. I’ll have to just finish it next week and give it to them then. It’s cooler than before, but still kind of hot these days. I was hoping to wear pants but Lime warned me I might die if I do. Damn it! Why oh why won’t fall come a little earlier? I’m sick of wearing shorts everyday! Ah well… today’s Mer and Myoung’s Baby Shower, at the criminally exorbitant Outback Steak House. I usually refuse to eat …
Camp is Almost Over
Just home from the last-night-of-camp dance party. I chose to be the fortune teller booth operator, and afterwards everyone was commending me as I worked it ALL NIGHT LONG. That is, until sometime after 10:30pm. The kids simply lined up in droves to hear their fortunes. And since they gathered around watching as I read each successive palm (despite my best efforts to shoo them away) I had to improvise each one. A dozen or more kids didn’t get their palms read and were devastated, and that after me steadily telling fortunes for several hours in a row, with a …
Homophobe Nation: Just Like America!
I delight in telling Koreans about ways in which their nation is just like the nation they love to hate: America. I thought Andi would be all over this, but she isn’t, and though I am sick as hell (and about to sleep) I am posting a link to an article on the front page of today’s Korea Herald, which claims that Korea is not ready for gay marriages. No big surprise, of course. Some of the other laws governing marriage are even more medieval than those in the West. But it was striking that two old lesbians having lived …
The Best Kind of People?
Is it really a surprise when Sarong Party Girl says the best kind of people in the world are sluts? I just heard the other night, a smoker declaring that the most sociable, companionable, agreeable people in the world are smokers. To this I say, well, maybe. But you have to remember the Avian Rule: in Koreanized Chinese, 유유상종 (Yu-Yu Sang Jong). In English, that’s, “Birds of a feather flock together.” Sluts tend to get along well, and appreciate one anothers’ highjinks well. Sluts together, if they are aware of one anothers’ sluttiness, are a recipe for shared mutally consented …
Introducing my friend Charlie.
I know I’ve mentioned him before, but never with any kind of picture. My friend Charlie is crazy. Crazy, that is, in the fact that he’s going to circumcycle Australia. That is, he’s gonna cycle all the way around Australia, apparently with side trips as well. He’d gonna take a freakin’ long time to do it, and he bought a special trike to do it on. Can you see the gleam in his eye? I think it’s merely the anticipation of the trip. He’s following through on an adventurous promise he made himself years ago, and I am definitely proud …
After a Long Day of Everyone Else’s Crap…
I’ve come home, it seems, too late to catch Lime on the phone. I think she went to bed. Damn! All that angry stuff of the last few days, of peoples’ bigotry and so on, is still floating around in my mind. I’ve heard, “You don’t know the culture, you can’t understand.” I think, frankly, it’s bullshit. I am sick and tired of people tripping on powergames with one another. I am sick and tired of people reacting to one anothers’ powergames. I am sick and bloody tired of people spending so much time and money and energy to learn …
How Would You Feel?
I was walking down the street last night after having watched a movie, and I wanted to find a taxi. Of course, where I got to the main street, a number of young couples were waiting, so I decided to walk a few blocks down and nab a taxi before it hit the busy spot. As I was walking, someone grabbed me on the arm. I turned to see who it was, thinking it might be a friend or acquaintance, but not, it was a total stranger. A Korean ajeoshi — a middle aged man. I looked at him and …
Hangeul display problems for no apparent reason…
Something weird is going on with my front page. I can post hangeul (in Korean, that is), and it looks messed up on the front page, but fine on the archive page for the individual post. I apologize for how things look on my front page. I’ll try figure it out this week, which will be a hell of a job as the language and charset settings are the same for both pages… but I’ll figure it out, I will. And in case you don’t believe me, have a look at this: 내가 미국인 아니지! should read, “naega migugin aniji!” …
Once More Into the Breach…
In a relatively rare event, Lime’s posted in English and she basically hits the nail on the head in a number of ways. Number one: this weekend was frighteningly short, far too short. I ended up having Friday and Saturday off from camp because the band went to some town near Seoul to play at a festival. It was strange: I was still sick from the aircon and kid germs at camp; I’d come home in an awful state Thursday night and Lime had showed up, orange juice in tow, and tried to relieve my sufferings a little. But I was still …