Over at the Livejournal mirror of this site, I was asked, just now, to clarify something about my last post, titled “[Literary] SF: A Social Phenomenon (Plus Some Detours),” why in the point I called Access I placed so much emphasis on foreign works in translation. I thought I would clarify that, as well as adding a point or two from the recent paper I presented at WorldCon. Note: I suggest you click that link, and see the original post first, before reading what follows. First: I emphasize foreign works in translation as an important part of “Access” to SF …
Tag: culture
Someday We’ll Find It
Still on a Henson kick. Here’s a very interesting version of one of his songs:
“Ya!”
(This post was written during my flight home, on 6 Sept. 2010.) Before I came to live in Asia, I’d hear people explain how a phrase like “so desu ne” could mean all kinds of things from “I see,” or “really?” all the way to, “I’m glad you see it my way, and acknowledge the responsibility that falls upon you in this position given your involvement with my enemies, and the inevitability of this confrontation between us.” I’m alluding, of course, to the ambiguity of language which is universal: “Uh huh” can denote all kinds of things in English, and …
Ev’rything I’ve Got
I have fond memories of Holly Cole’s dark and seductive version of this song (on Don’t Smoke in Bed), but that’s not online, and I found something even better — in a sense… Truly bizarre: the music is… well, it feels like a cross between a high school marching band and some TV network’s in-house orchestra. And then there’s the video, which looks like it cost a few hundred bucks to put together, plus the (can’t be too much!) wages for the dancers. What is that, some kind of abandoned train yard or something? Vikki Carr definitely ain’t no Ella …
Darwin’s Shockwave: On Violence and Human Nature
Last semester, I think it was, one of my students asked me what I thought about “나영이 사건” as an article topic for the campus English magazine for which students write articles in my journalistic writing course. If you haven’t heard about it — and you probably don’t live in Korea if you haven’t heard about it — “The Nayeong Incident” was a case in which a 57-year-old man raped a 9-year-old girl in a church. Brian in Jeollanamdo has the basics and some links, and all I can add to that is that there were a lot of variation …
My Name in Korea[n]
A few responses have come in for my post about Names That Ain’t Workin’ so I figured I’d add something about my name, the use of “foreign” names, and more. First, the last issue. I don’t really see the point in taking on a foreign name. Sure, it would give Koreans something to call me that would be easy for them to pronounce, and avoid them mangling my real name. (Which they sometimes do.) But I like to think human beings, languages, and cultures are flexible things. I like to think I could live in another culture and keep my …
They Don’t Make ‘Em Like That No More… or, on the Soundtrack ofLes Liaisons Dangereuses
Maybe I’m exaggerating. But it seems to me movie soundtracks, however danceable they may be, no matter how much they may support a film’s action sequences, very rarely stand up on their own as art anymore. I do have a copy of the Lola Rennt soundtrack, but I can’t really call it art, not except in that cheesy industry way that any dipshit in skimpy or stylish clothes who can lipsynch becomes a “recording artist.” Not like, say, the soundtrack of the 1959 Roger Vadim film Les liaisons dangereuses. I mean, Art Blakey and the friggin’ Jazz Messengers? (As well …
Pearls Before Swine, Or, The Time Has Come to Saw off the Brakes
You know. You know better. You know most people would rather eat what they always eat, think what they’ve always thought, drink what they’ve always drunk, read what they’ve always read. You know that so many people have no idea how interesting a world of diversity and difference is. They say “Everyone does it this way,” whether explicitly or implicitly, because they wish everyone was just as boring as they are. So many people — is it wrong to say most? I’m not sure it is — couldn’t be bothered. They’d rather just stay in their rut. It’s comfortable, it’s …
It is to Flunk
I was grading a stack of student assignments — specifically, feedback on readings, which I make them do on the theory that it helps them prepare for discussions of the texts — when I ran across a particularly saddening passage in response to “The Multiculture,” an essay about Torontonian multiculturalism, which I’ll only paraphrase here: If I were a Torontonian, I would look at foreigners in two ways. In one way, I’d see them as invaders, because they would be speaking foreign languages and bringing foreign customs to my land. But I would also see them as bringing new life …
Ideas Worth Pushing: Post-Snark Era?
Jetse de Vries linked a recent post by Matt Staggs which hails an idea I really hope catches on: that we don’t need no more snark. I don’t know to what degree I’m guilty of it on my own website–maybe a little more than I imagine, but less than so many websites I’ve seen–but I do know I’ve reached the point where snarkiness for snarkiness’ sake is simply no longer a novelty. It’s a very tired, boring, useless exercise, and, finally, I think what can be said is that it’s become a self-indulgence. A tiresome self-indulgence, and one that gets …