Month: April 2008

James on Wonder Girls

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(START UPDATE #1 — 2:12 am same night): Well, Lime tells me that, no, it really is “boys and ajeoshis” who are the main consumers of Wonder Girls CDs. If this is the case, then this adds a more disturbing layer to my reading of the Tell Me video, since that would mean it’s a representation of a “girl’s fantasy” that’s constructed for the edification of male consumers. But the thing I have to wonder is, was the band aimed at male consumers from the beginning — from the release of “Tell Me”? And is it really true that the …

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The Rip-Off

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Some weeks, things really do raise my hackles. It’s the concatenation of all kinds of things that are probably universal, but which in Korea are much more in-your-face or more, I don’t know, commonly accepted. What’s hitting me more and more is how the atmosphere of acceptability impacts negatively on individuals and on society in general. That’s what I’m focusing on now, here in this post.

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Zombie Drought & Other Thirsts

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Go to Postcards From Hell and read my pal Tristan Davenport’s story “La Sequía”. I mean, the first sentence is: Contrary to promises made in church, death does not give her the use of her legs back. You know you want to. (And yeah, there’s been lots of cool stuff on Postcards From…, so go and troll the archives. But this story just hit me. Not just because he’s a classmate of mine from Seattle, either.)

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Magazine Catchup Part I – Asimov’s & F&SF, August ’07 and Interzone July-Aug ’07

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In the last year, I traveled a lot — weeks and weeks, in fact — and ended up falling far behind on my magazine subscriptions. I usually catch up during the semester, sneaking a magazine in here or there, but last semester was so incredibly busy that I barely read any of my magazines. So here I am, in April, reading magazines from last August. Well, the good news is, I’m at least enjoying them, and catching up somewhat. Asimov’s Science Fiction‘s issue from last August (2007) was one I was very eager to read. Rudy Rucker and Bruce Sterling …

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Transcribed Marginalia on Librarything!

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This is trippy. Librarything is hosting an index of annotations and marginalia in the books of famous individuals’ libraries. The linked example is of marginalia transcribed from John Adams’ library. Sooner or later — like, maybe after I die of old age, but someday, anyway — this kind of index is going to be built right off the annotations that professional and amateur scholars, book-lovers, and others make in their electronic texts. They’ll be able to both annotate into, and upload annotations directly from, their reading interfaces. Online will be indexes with marginalia and notes and comments, and students will …

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