Month: August 2011

On Rhiannon Brooksbank-Jones’ Tongue Surgery

gordsellar2 Comments

I must admit, as someone who’s been teaching Koreans English for a decade now (more, if you include the Koreans in my classes at Concordia University in Montreal). I’m extremely dubious about this: Student Rhiannon Brooksbank-Jones dreams of living and working in South Korea once she finishes university, even though she has never visited the country. But while taking language lessons, the 19-year-old found that she couldn’t pronounce certain crucial sounds in the Korean alphabet. Her dentist suggested it may be because she was born with a slightly shorter than average tongue, caused by having an unusually thick lingual frenulum …

Continue Reading

Ayn Rand’s Anthem

gordsellar0 Comments

I have this problem: I’ve been trying to research the work and “ideas” of Ayn Rand, the better to satirize them in this story I want to write. The painful thing is, well… reading Rand is painful. It really is. I read 100 pages of The Fountainhead and couldn’t understand how or why it blew away people who are supposed to be intelligent, educated, and so on. It’s a embarrassingly bad book, mainly because, besides clunky, boring prose, it’s something that could only be a sensible argument if what it were arguing against weren’t a complete and utter strawman. Anthem …

Continue Reading

Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King

gordsellar0 Comments

I stayed up late last night — very late, actually — to finish reading Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water, and yet, I’m not exactly sure what I want to say about it, or how I feel about it. I really want to love it, to think it’s wonderful and run around recommending it to my friends. I do know of some people I think will really like it, in fact, though I’m not sure I know anyone I can suggest reading it who will fall for it. The writing is, of course, solid. Thomas King knows how to set …

Continue Reading

Gunpla Advertisement Analysis, and 우뢰매!

gordsellar0 Comments
This entry is part 49 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

Gunpla Ad Analysis: While it’s a side of SF fandom that, like filk, I just don’t quite “get” — mostly just because I know so little about Japanese anime SF, I suppose — Gundam fandom is something that is, at least, visible here. Gundam merchandise in shops is, in fact, more common here than RPG game products ever were in shops in the North American cities I’ve lived in, and there’s definitely some serious interest in anime here. (Indeed, Korea’s Robo-Taekwon V was quite obviously a response to Japanese battlebot-suit anime frnachises like Mobile Suit Gundam; see here for more …

Continue Reading

Experimental Brewday: Ship O’Boons I and II (15 Minute Hopping Challenge)

gordsellar0 Comments

What, what?! I’ve been wanting to brew up a few experimental things, and in theory at least summer is when I have time. But this experiment is not a lone, mad-scientist experiment… no, it’s a collaborative experiment within my brewing community. No, not forcing people to hop for fifteen minutes, but rather, adding hops to a beer only in the last fifteen minutes of the boil. (Normally, we add hops at earlier stages too, but the end of the boil means more flavor and aroma, and if you add a lot of hops you can maximize those and still get …

Continue Reading