My Secret?

Got a funny tweet this morning: @GordSellar Just received your memoir from @HonestTea. #location pic.twitter.com/kGxqOYeVKS — Derek Brown (@derekbrown) September 6, 2013 Ha, funnily enough, I submitted this a long, long time ago, and forgot all about it. But for all that, the principle seems to hold. In the past couple of weeks, since relocating to our new apartment, I’ve: started exercising regularly (that is, swimming daily, and tracking it on Fitocracy, because gamification = motivation boost; I’ll be adding a regimen of bodyweight exercises next week, too), drafted close to 10% of the novel I’m working on (I should …

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“Natural Selection” Trailer

UPDATE (18 August 2013): I forgot to mention, this short film will be screening in Portland early this October at Zompire: The Undead Film Festival. In fact, it was the first film mentioned among those that got “early selection” for the festival, and I couldn’t be prouder of Mrs. Jiwaku, who directed the film. Original Post: The Korean title is “Natural Selection” (well, the Korean equivalent: <자연선택설>) but the English title isn’t, though Mrs. Jiwaku and I both call the film by that working title. (The English title is “Environmental Pressures & Species Adaptation” which, okay, whatever…) Anyway, we finally …

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The Stuff I’ve Been Doing of Late

This is just a quick update for those wondering why I haven’t posted anything in a while. There’s snaps of food I’ve cooked, a rare recording of the current state of my sax playing as of right now (and a discussion of an online course in jazz improvisation I’m taking with Gary Burton, yes, that Gary Burton), and a little discussion of my writing.

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About that MBC Parody Video

A good long time ago, James at The Grand Narrative urged me to write about the things I discuss below. I thought it was a good idea, but relented at first, thinking that maybe I might get fired the way Gerry Bevers was for posting about Dokdo. Then I got busy, and stayed busy. Then I left Korea. And here we are. But this video came up again, where I live now, as part of a discussion about sexism and racism in Korea, and I realized that I’d never gotten around to it, and that I should. Because I learned …

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In With the New

In with the new project, that is. I had a little choreography to work out, since I’m planning to co-write a story with a friend soon, but just got a great idea for a screenplay that pretty much appeared in my mind, not quite fully-formed, but almost. The screenplay sort of brings together a lot of things I’ve wished I could see in a Korean SF movie, and following Justin Howe’s advice, I figure now is a good time to try write it… especially since there’s enough time to get a draft done and submit it to the PIFAN-hosted NAFF …

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Charles on the Cthulhu Festival of Film, and What We’re Working On

I’m in the home stretch of the screenplay I’m trying to wrap up today–a project that anyway I’m not really supposed to be talking about for now, though hopefully at some point I can because it’s interesting, and relevant, and Lovecraftian, and set in Korea–but in any case, since I am busy and can’t discuss it anyway, here’s something else: My friend Charles attended the recent Cthulhu Festival of Film in Seoul a couple of months ago (at the end of February), and soon after posted his thoughts about the films and the event in general. I haven’t been able to …

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In Sydney? Watch Our Movie!

For those readers in Sydney, the Australian premiere of “The Music of Jo Hyeja” is at Syndney’s genre film festival, Fantastic Planet. It screens at 3pm on the 14th of April, as part of the H.P. Lovecraft vs. Stephen King shorts program. They even used a still shot from “Jo Hyeja” for the webpage for that session of the festival! (Get your tickets here.) Wish we could be there… but we’re working on other projects down here in Saigon!

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Seoul Cthulhu Festival of Film: 28 Feb 2012

This entry is part 57 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

UPDATE (8 March 2013): This event was a huge success, selling out all the seats in the cinema to a very appreciative audience. We’re happy it was so well-received, and hope that it will inspire the organization of similar such events in future! I’ll post photos when I get the chance… ORIGINAL POST: Fans of H.P. Lovecraft in Seoul will not want to miss the upcoming Cthulhu Festival of Film in Seoul. The evening will feature three film adaptations of Lovecraft’s stories: one Korean, one German, and one American. There will be subtitles for all films, to accommodate both Korean-speakers …

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Eine Kleine Zombiemusik

I’ve just put the finishing touches on the music for Mrs. Jiwaku’s third short film, a zombie movie. Over the course of the project (developing the music, I mean) I’ve posted in-progress clips to Soundcloud, but now I’ve got the final, tidied-up and cleaner tracks up. They are, for the moment, downloadable–in part because Mrs. Jiwaku will need to download them. They are quite loud, by the way: I de-normalized the output because it seems to fit the aggressive sound we need, especially in the non-autonormalized version of Track #3. Just a warning, for those listening on headphones or about …

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If You Wanna Be My 형…

Yeah, sung to the tune of that horrible Spice Girls song. Ugh. Miss Jiwaku and I talked after she got back from her film program meeting today, about her frustrations. To what do her frustrations mostly connect? Older people who insist on “respect” and special treatment on account of their age, regardless of incompetence, rudeness, or plain stupidity. There’s an older person in her film program who is particularly useless, who apparently was constantly rude to her, who finally warmed up to her… why? Because she poured him soju with two hands and used the magic “term of respect” address …

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