Category: GENERAL

In Times of Upheaval

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Interesting details gleaned from Tania: Memories of a Lost World by Tania Alexander (daughter of the infamous Moura Budberg, about whom I have posted before, many times, all the way back to 2006, as part of a story I am once again about to begin revising, after finishing a draft in 2010): during World War I, what was Russian high society doing? There were no official parties or embassy balls for the duration of the war, but right up to the  October 1917 Revolution it was possible to maintain the outward appearances of social life, and restaurants and gypsy taverns …

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2003?

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If you have just received a bunch of posts from 2003 in your feed, in the Livejournal mirror of my site, or on Twitter or Facebook… … I was going through some old posts (in which photographs had been posted, but were missing, and which ended up in the Posts Pending queue), and happened to republish them, hoping the “Stealth Publish” function would prevent the posts from turning up everywhere else online as if they were new. I hoped wrong. So anyway, that’s that…

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Whew…

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This entry is part 12 of 15 in the series Making "The Music of Jo Hyeja"

I have gotten so much done in the last couple of weeks that it simply isn’t funny: the semi-final draft of an article with a swiftly approaching deadline the final draft of a new short story submitted to Bibliotheca Fantastica a revision of the subtitles for our film, “The Music of Jo Hyeja” But there’s a lot left to do too, especially grading. owever, I’m tempted to take tommorrow off just for housecleaning and reading a novel, some novel, any novel, along with one nonfiction book on Pound; I never get enough reading done during semesters, and I’m eager to …

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Bacon #4

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When I am insanely busy — and these days, with me at the office until midnight getting various things done, I am — one thing I can do that takes very little time or attention, but which still results in Neat Stuff in the end, is curing meat. I’m now on my 4th pork belly as far as my bacon-making adventures are concerned, and about to make a departure. To recap the last three bacons: Oversalted savory bacon. This was not usable for much besides throwing in a piece or two into a soup, for seasoning and meat flavor (in …

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How Anti-Science Religious Fanatics Ruined Disney’s Fantasia

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Don’t get me wrong, Fantasia’s a great cartoon for what it is. But the “Rite of Spring” section is marred, in one way I knew about already, but also in another way that I didn’t know about until just now. The way I knew about is the music: Stravinsky objected — and quite rightly — to the performance, which isn’t quite right — but especially to the changes they made to the music: cuts, rearrangement of material, and so on. But that’s the price you pay for mass media entertainment, and the big bucks, I guess. The other marring is …

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Apologies

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I’ve been dealing with a number of different fires that have broken out lately, including: myself, then Miss Jiwaku, being quite sick in the last week and a half the necessity of finalizing audio tracks for the film we’re making before next Friday (though the deadline was initially today, when I was still quite ill!) a medical emergency with a fellow expat coworker, and all kinds of organizational (re: his family) and workplace fallout for that. (For those who know Michael, his brother has posted an update on his Facebook Wall, which is where the link above leads.) helping a …

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Religious Upbringing and The Basis for Ethics

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A friend of mine once commented that my experience of religion, from the way I talked about it, reminded her of the way some people talk about a bad trip on LSD… the kind of story where someone ends by explaining, “And that’s why I’ll never touch the stuff again.” Well, that’s not completely true. I do read about religion sometimes; look at the last book I reviewed here, for example! I sometimes read about the history of Christianity, or of scriptures, because quite frankly, that was the governing tradition of the West the way capitalism is our governing paradigm today. …

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What Happens When You Ask Assholes to Be Polite (In Yeokgok, At Least), And How to Get Better at Doing It

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I swore to myself that I wouldn’t write bitching rants about Korea anymore, since they do nobody any good. So… I’m not. You might think I am, below, but stick with me: it comes around. Miss Jiwaku and I had a pretty nice day out today… well, mostly. (We saw the only decent film playing in a 5km area of our home, which was Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and, well, I have to say: there’s no point in watching a good film — something without a techno music soundtrack, or a plotline even a monkey could follow — in a …

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The “Are you sure you want to come to Russia?” Dream

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No, I’ve never been, but I have dreamed about visiting Moscow and St. Petersburg. Most recently, last night. And since I rarely remember my dreams on waking, I thought I’d set it down. In which dream I apparently was seen writing poetry (something I don’t do much anymore) somewhere in Moscow, and this was enough for some organization above both the SVR (international intellligence service) and the FSB (the domestic one) to track me, watch me, and strongarm me by visiting my short-term rental apartment in the guise of a plumber and rendering the toilet unusable. Later, when waiting for …

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Talking Through Bigotry

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Miss Jiwaku and I have an acquaintance, a Korean fellow we know, though I won’t say how we know him. (Anonymity will allow me to speak more honestly.) He is a fine sort of fellow, in general, quite professional and creative, easy enough to work with and even at times funny; she and I have learned many things from him, and I hope likewise he has learned a thing or two from us as well. However, there’s one thing that makes it hard for me to get along with him, something it’s hard to put my finger on exactly because, …

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