I’d have time to post constantly. But since I’m not: Here’s some vintage Korean SF action… well, for a broad definition of SF: Apparently the show is now retro-hip enough for indie rockers Go Go Star to do a musical (and cosplay) tribute: Another version of the song, with better video: As for me, I’ll be off to Melbourne for the Utopias 4 conference hosted at Monash University and WorldCon — I’m presenting (different) papers at each. I’ll post my schedule as soon as it’s finalized, in case anyone wants to meet up.
Tag: funny
What Does Ray Think?
I so wish I could see the look on Ray Bradbury’s face watching this (For the first time, I mean): F*ck Me, Ray Bradbury – watch more funny videos Oh yeah, Ray hates the Internets. Too bad. Still, wonder if maybe someone’s shown this to him. Weirdly, though, I’ve never really been into the man’s work. I did like the book set on Mars, and Fahrenheit 451 was better than a lot of stuff we read in school, but… I dunno. Maybe I wasn’t mature enough, or something? I suppose I should give him a try again someday. UPDATE: Hat …
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 …
Bible as SF?
I must thank Emmanuel Carrère for this lovely little anecdote about SF in, I presume, the 1950s: Terry Carr, the Ace paperback editor, used to joke that if the Bible had been published as science fiction, it would have had to be cut down to two volumes of twenty thousand words each; the Old Testament would have been re-titled “Master of Chaos,”, and the New Testament “The Thing With Three Souls.” — Emmanuel Carrere I Am Alive And You Are Dead; A Journey Into The Mind Of Phillip K. Dick Terry Carr, the Ace paperback editor, used to joke that …
Communication is So Important
A friend was bringing me up-to-date on his life, and for reasons I won’t get into, this story came to mind. Parts of it are second-hand, but I’m going to just tell it the way I’d tell it verbally, that is, without differentiating the bits that I know are true and the bits that are hearsay. And of course, because I’m doing that, I’ll leave out the real names, and take some liberties. I think the couple of people might be able to guess who I’m talking about already know the story, so it’s not like I’m ruining someone’s reputation. …
SF Airshow
I was commenting to my friend Insu (a Korean SF translator/fan) that I’m not much of a fan of airplanes, but I got a kick out of this, which was posted to the Launch Pad mailing list the other day… even though I don’t recognize most of the ships.
Random Linkage
I didn’t know until this week, but both Corey Haim and Gary Coleman died this year. Which means little to me, except that when I was searching for other things, these two cases came up in Google again and again. Zenkimchi on the internationalization of Korean food, and how the guys claiming to spearhead it are going wrong… all a case of not knowing their market, and having things backwards. My rule about Korean restaurants isn’t quite the opposite of his title — the best Korean restaurants aren’t always the cheapest, though he’s right that the worst are usually the …
Boyran, a novel by “World’s Youngest Fantasy Writer Wonje Song”
UPDATE (9 Feb 2010): Yeah, I know he’s not really the world’s youngest fantasy writer. The book was marketed this way, though, and I wanted to include that in the title of the post. It’s exactly the kind of hyperbole one sees in Korea all the time, absolutely not fact-checked or anything. Anyway… ORIGINAL POST: On Friday last, my friend Nick and dropped by that jazz festival I mentioned. I’ll post more about that soon — I have some pics I want to add to the post, but it’s already written up. On the way back to the subway station, …
More Nigerian 419-Scam-Related Pop Songs
I posted yesterday about 419 scams and a pop song related to the topic, and after a little more poking around, I found a talk discussed here, in which a few more 419 scam-related songs are mentioned. Here they are: and: The first song “Yahoozee,” by Olu Maintain, while the second is “No More Yahoozee [The Reply],” by Harri Best Moradiyo. Both songs seem to be related to the travails and legalities of being a 419-scammer, in roughly the same way that being a business exec is glamorized, or criticized, in the American media. Which gives me an idea for some deep-future …
An EMP in Lagos
UPDATE: More here. ORIGINAL POST: Seriously, I get this weird feeling someday people might just be willing to support something like a sequestration of Lagos from the Internet, or some sort of EMP that would knock out all the computers there, creating a hardware shortage and making it difficult for Nigerians to replace their computers… maybe even getting other nations to forbid export of computers to Nigeria. Then again, how much spam comes from Korea? No, really. Maybe that EMP was a bad suggestion. The other night, some Nigerian scam artist like the kid mentioned in this article hacked the …