A Review Pours In!

As you may recall (both readers), last week I wrote an epic poem (albeit a short and insignificant one on a minor theme) and posted it here.

I am happy to say that Mr. Joe Orton of the Hawley Smoot Post and Tariff, has emailed me his review of my work. I post it here, without comment, which is more or less what it deserves.

The central theme/muse/symbol in all Montgomery’s major works is beer. This is Beer the Creator of modern man and beer the inspiration (e.g. in the Epic of Gilgamesh, the 'wild man' Enkidu is given beer to drink. "...he ate until he was full, drank seven pitchers of beer, his heart grew light, his face glowed and he sang out with joy."). Montgomery often relates Mankind’s creative process with the work of a creator, a brewer, an artist. In the natural world it is man’s artistic vision that brings creation to its zenith -- by revealing the world as it is, by sharpening perception, by giving form to ideas, by creating order out of chaos. Beer, of course, is in “the Mogi,” as any serious critic of Montgomery’s work would guess. But in “The Mogi” Montgomery steps outside of man’s creative role, to examine the creative and destructive role of the universe that surrounds us.

One of the beauties of Montgomery’s work is its (extreme) simplicity and you do not need to understand Montgomery’s divine-visionary-drunken beliefs to appreciate "The Mogi." Even a teetotaler can enjoy this work, for at its core the poem reprises the questions that many of us asked when we first heard the claim that God was a benevolent creator. "If that is so, why is there bloodshed and pain and horror? Why death? Why disease? Why the Lakers?" Most answers to these kinds of questions seem rote, incomplete or dishonest. "The Mogi" recounts, in a mythic context, the experience of not getting satisfactory answers to this key question of faith.

Montgomery does not stop here (he is not prone, actually, to stopping at all). "The Mogi" also describes that precipitous moment in which reason is overwhelmed by the antipodal but linked beauty and horror we find in the natural world. "When the stars threw down their spears / And watered heaven with their tears" is perhaps is the densest and most thematically rich section of "The Mogi." In the creation story in "Job", the stars sing for joy at creation, and it is to this that Montgomery refers. This key moment of creation is, of course, immediately definitively linked to Montgomery’s own “star tears,” the beer in the hand of the Creator. Unusually, Montgomery suggests that this might not be an altogether good thing.

In “The Mogi,’ stars represent reason and objectivity. Although Montgomery is generally a rationalist, and fully appreciates the understanding that science can bring to the world, he is also enough of transcendentalist to know that there is an experience to hearing the buzz of a Mogi at night that can't be communicated in entomology class: Our sense of annoyance and fear defies reason. As the Mogi’s buzz gets closer to our ears we have all had the experience of flailing frantically at that noise in the vain hope of destroying nature’s littlest assassin. It is not too much of a stretch, in fact, to argue that the Mogi can be read here as a symbol of death as well as of nature’s implacable might. The two are certainly linked

Regardless of whether the Mogi is taken as a symbol of death or of the power of nature lurking beneath and beyond our concrete ramparts, Montgomery makes the point that contemporary rationalists (of all political stripes) who hope to control the world by thought and application of power must eventually face the reality of the Mogi. As the lines “Who the devil? What dread grasp / Makes you want to sting my ass?” make clear, Montgomery believes that if we do not face the reality of the Mogi, the Mogi will come back to bite us on the ass.

Some critic would have you believe the Mogi represents evil. These critics are stupid. They eat steak don’t they? It is certainly not "evil" for a real Mogi to dine on humanity, but is part-and-parcel of our world. Yet it still inspires a certain horror and a sense of awe, that we are in the presence of the transcendent mystery at the very heart of creation -- and a certain terrible beauty. If Montgomery’s lyric has brought this to our attention, it has been successful.

Now I'm going to go and get a nice frosty one!

Bad News!

For all of you who have been waiting to send me last year's Xmas gifts.

You must now rule out the Sigma APO DG 70-300 lens as a potential gift. I bought this bad-girl from a, well bad-girl I suppose for about $133.00, which is a real bargain in Korea.

It's a nice lens too, although I'm still figuring it out. The first thing I did, of course, was take it out to take picture of bugs, stinking bugs.

The first bug was a fly on a wall (a bit cliche, even for a walking, talking cliche such as myself!) as I walked across Namsan Mountain and took a bit of refuge from the sun in a redwood-ish pagoda on the side of the hill.

The fly was obliging and hung out til I could figure out how to engage the macro. So I got two or three shots of which the one on the right is best by far.

Also, I learned that a picture of a fly on a wall is not only pretty uncompelling, but it also doesn't seem to reflect much about Korea.

Lesson learned, lesson learned

Then, when Yvonne and I went to see the Egyptian Exhibit, we also hung out at the little pond in front of the Museum and, lo and behold, a dragonfly came by and alit on the one sad leaf of pond-grass that stuck up out of the algae-ridden pond.

So I got me another pic.

Now, of course, we come to tragedy. We arrived home and there was a cockroach in the bathtub. Yvonne went in to shower - which she does Korean style, standing on the bathroom floor with the drain open. This means she didn't have to actually get in there with George, as we had named him. But it did mean she splashed enough water on little George that he expired soggily.

I didn't want to pick him up in his waterlogged state, so waited until the tub had dried out and..

It must have been CockaRoach Easter, cause George was back to life!

Or, those cockroaches are as tough as they say.

So, with George dry and alive, I got an empty yogurt cup, some cardboard, and trapped George and let him go outside.

Here is a picture of George, valiantly trundling away.

With that it was bed time and so I went to bed.

When I looked out my window.. Woe betide! Alas!

Poor George had not got very far.

This truly sh*tty pic is of George, on his back, six little legs to the sky, communing with the Great Insect What Lives in the Heavens.

And Yvonne can chalk up another kill!

Muse, National, Eum, and all that..

Today was a trip to the Seoul National Museum. Yvonne and I had been here once before, with BKF on our first trip to Seoul several years ago. This time, however, we were in search of Egyptian culture. The museum is hosting an exhibition, and since it is beginning to heat up in Seoul (I think it hit 28-29) we are trying to do more indoor things. We walked to the tube-station and had one of the excellent street-pastries they sell in Korea. Something like donuts in the US, but the “dough” part is a bit closer to bread, and there are no sticky glazes. The sweetness comes from the dusting of sugar, most of which I try to brush off. Then it was to Noksapyeong Station for coffee and down to the museum.

It is farking vast, as that picture above is intended to demonstrate (Which you are going to have to click on, since Blogger won't size it right). Someone had also tarted it out a bit.. the columns were covered in Egyptian hieroglyphs and art, and the bank of stairs at the middle of the museum had been painted with the Sphinx. It was a cool combination of the existing architecture and an application of Egyptian motifs. As usual it left me wondering how it is that when Koreans get near getting something right they so often hit it head on, but if they get too far away from getting something right it slides all the way to dead wrong.

My guess?

Every culture is like this, it just so happens that crabby old me is here. ;-)

The exhibit was grand, one of the few themed museum exhibits I’ve been on in which the exhibit gave out before my interest did. There were several cool things, including a semi-panoramic movie, a Terry Gilliam-esque thing in which someone at the British museum had taken old Egyptian frescoes and art, and animated them. It sounds totally cheesy, but it was quite grand. There were also some cool holographs. But really, the main thing was the exhibit, which was well thought out and presented. There was also the typical lack of queuing and too many kids running around unwatched, but as we got there early, it wasn’t too bad. Sunday afternoon would have been an entirely different story!

On the way out I took a picture in the gift shop, of the pyramid of chocolate you see to the right and was immediately stopped by an ajumma who told me “no pictures, no pictures!” I was a bit surprised, because behind me was a flock of couples and families snapping pictures. I pointed over my shoulder to where at least 10 of were taking pictures with flashes flaring (I observe a polite “no flash” when in public indoor spaces approach) and said, “no pictures?” Ajumma said, “no pictures.”

Seeing me put my camera down she walked away content, the barbarian insurrection quelled!

The flashing behind me continued unabated.

Oh well. Next time I’ll wear my Korean makeup. ;-)

I tried to sneak back to the tube-station before any more culture could be inflicted upon me. Unfortunately, Yvonne remembered that the Korean National General exhibits were free and thus we had to go check them out. This time, however, we got the little 3k won tour-guide PDA and that was completely worth it even though the information was set up as a woman lecturing and a retarded man answering randomly (sample quote when faced with the complexities of the Paleolithic Era: “Are you kidding me? There was a technique for chipping stones?”).

After all this we were a bit peckish and stopped in at the Korean Restaurant and Yvonne had some kind of sogogi dish and I had hae-mul pajeon. Then it was out into the heat for me to take some pictures and for Yvonne to wander far, then near, and then fall asleep. So when I was done with my pictures I wandered far to find her while, near, she could not find me and got on the subway home. ;-)

We finally met up there and headed up the hill to have a delicious noodle dinner and watch the first episode of Michael Palin’s Sahara (on the wall, from the computer through my projector).

As the B-man says, “another average day in paradise.”

Oh yeah...

that picture over there on the right?

Like any visit to a Korean museum could be complete without some kind of pictorial representation of the Korean museum's bizarre fixation with roof tiles.

Yep, that's a roof tile.

Excellent!

Normally I don't take much note of English Errors

And not that much glee in Konglish.. but shouldn't the National Theater of Korea know better?

With apologies to Mr. Blake

Upon the occasion of having been bitten.....

The Mogi

Mogi, Mogi, aloft alight
Waiting for a time to bite,
What immoral hand or eye
Gave stings and wings to a housefly?

From what distant drapes, on my fat thighs
Do you sit and peer and set your eyes?
On what silent wings, do you aspire
To leave a sting that burns like fire?

What nimble fingers, & what art
Made you long for fluid from my heart?
And when thy heart began to beat
Did that creator sense his own defeat?

What the thimble? what the stick?
That built you with your cruel prick
Who the devil? With lack of grasp
Made you want to sting my ass?

When the stars threw down their spears
Did the creator have a couple beers,
Did he smile, his work to see?
Did the creator of man, make Mogi?

Mogi, Mogi, aloft alight
Waiting for a time to bite
What immoral hand or eye
Gave stings and wings to a housefly?

Of course, you stupid idiots..

1959

I swear, it really is the year everything changed.

read more about why my birth will eventually require some kind of crucifixion, right here..

And get your shit right with dat reality..

word!

Marking final assignments and the actual final... Siiiigh..

Now the lamb lies with the lion
He's just a little savage



I can't wait for next week, when I will only have a convo class to deal with.. and that all planned out.

Really.. of course it's sticky-hot, but I'm not compaining

My convo students ambushed me in the hall and gave me a coffee cake.

Well, a Korean version.. so it was coated in saccharined-spackle and close approximations of graveyard scenery.

Still, I took it home.. scraped off all the gunk and had two slices of pretty good spice-cake underneath.

Then I cut it up and put it in the eum shik mul bag as I haven't been in the gym in months, and this is not healthy food. ;-)

Been grading ever since.

It is really the only "chore" to instruction and it is a chore pretty much proportional to the skills of students... as my kids are skilled, I have to sort through their arguments and splay them on the return table. Taxing.



I should say, for my friend Pucay, that retards might also be as taxing, since you'd have no idea where to begin ("Er, excuse me dear student in the United States, did you hit your head on the pier when you landed?"), but Pucay's hatred of the simple.. well.. it bothers me while it pays her.


hopefully that bit of true evil will get her off of Charles' yacht and back to posting. ;-)

Anyway.. so infra dig.... but grading continues... and will be done by Friday, I hope!

That Hot Chick from Bulgogi Blog Found These Pics of Daejeon

Wow


Yvonne, the rare blogger at bulgogi (and, of course, my fiancee) found a slide-show of pictures of Daejeon in 1951, after the Civil War had left town. They are farking amazing pictures if you have ever been to modern Daejeon.



Boggling..



I'm not sure war left Dresden this flat?

Summer Plans..

Are beginning to shape up...

I will teach from next Monday til July 17th. This is morning work, and in the afternoon I will write and try to shake off the rust I've grown since I came back Korea from the US.

From then until my Korean class on August 5th is a bit unclear. In an ideal world I'll make enough money to get to the Philippines and the US, but I don't know. That's a lot of world traveling and money for a poor kid from South-Central Seoul. ;-)

Then back for my Korean class, and more writing in the afternoon, and then a quick 5-day trip to China. Since flying to China is about like flying from SFO to Denver, this should be a breeze.

Then, back to the teaching thing, but this time armed with knowledge and skillzzzzzz!

Lost Weekend?

Nah...

Headed down to the Mike McStay benefit, which raised about 1.5 million won. Yvonne and I crashed at the usual yeogwan and shopped for books in the morning.

Normally I'm lukewarm about the bookshopping thing, but I'm working on an article. So I used Yvonne's 2-chun purchases as an excuse to snap photos like crazy. That pic on the right is the "upstairs" storage area of a bookstore in the Jung-A market. The books hide two doors which lead to even more..

well

books...

Then up to Seoul where I napped as Yvonne went (more) book shopping.

Later, we went into Itaewon and actually had fun (well, 2 beers worth for me, two cokes worth for Y) at a bar that was splendid.. except for Young Soldier X whose drug intake, crazy Cartmann reflective shades, and habit of busting into weird air-guitar poses did not add up, at all, to how annoying he was when he spilled someone else's beer and then did some kind of spastic dance in the puddles.

Morons.

As it turns out?

They are everywhere. (I just saw one in the mirror while I was shaving)

Sunday we went hunting for bookstores in Dongdaemun and after a bit of palaver, found the goldmine.

Yvonne went mad.. and I snapped pictures for the article.

Then lunch at a place we never would have stopped in, but as Yvonne pointed at the picture of Sam Gye Tang on the window, the ajumma came running out and started yapping at us in Korean. But all restaurant Korean, so I got it. She pulled us in, basically, by force of will. A good marketing approach as we had been desultorily wandering down the street apparently doomed to end up at Lotteria or Mickey D's.

As we had our Galbi Tang we watched her work the street.

Ajumma had skills... her best catch was three Ajeoshi who were wandering the street looking for food.

First time they passed she just got a bit of a word in.

Second time she flat stopped them with her flow. They sort of hovered in front of the joint for 5 minutes and then slowly walked off, with one of the three in vocal dissent.

finally, they came back down the street (the original direction they had come) and the guy who had been hectoring them, as shepherd, and the ajumma as chorus....

they found food Jesus.

Yvonne and I laughed our asses off at the positive personality this ajumma projected.

We'll be back.

The food was plentiful, not great, but the ajumma made the place rock.

Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam!

Next gift-giving occasion I will sneak my bad self into a Costco and snap pictures that fully indicate the Korean obsession with SPAM.

It is a sensible obsession, I suppose, which began after the Korean War when locals realized that SPAM was the perfect fat and calorie filled food for fighting famine.
(I must get some kind off accelerating alliteration points for that last sentence?)

In fact, Budae Jiggae is still a classic Korean stew, and it still features SPAM.

But you know me.. I like to make the political personal.

Which is why I was thrilled to find the "SPAM Single" (which sounds like an honest title if I ever put an advert on E-harmony). You take that bad boy and two pieces of American cheese (removing the plastic wrap is optional) and toss them onto a piece of bread on a frying pan?

Three minutes later you have a delicious heart-attack.

Heck. Next time I think I'll fry the bastard in butter.

Also, I particularly like that there are now "flavors" for spam. The close-reader of eemajee will have already noted I took mine Italian style - mozzarella and chicken.

I'd type more, but the shooting chest pains seem to have made the fingers in my left hand all numb and tingly.....

Palo Alto officials look for long-term solutions following student suicides

Er...

what could be a longer term solution than suicide?

But in the short term?

All the suicides are Gunn students.

Let them go to Paly and learn why life is worth living. ;-)

We Enjoy What?

LOLcatzzzz..

even when attempting to use the US as an example of something to emulate, it seems we can't quite be.. known... (this from the joongong daily)

“Korean teenagers compete for higher scores during three years of high school, but students in other countries such as the United States read, write, do volunteer activities and enjoy sports such as taekwondo and tennis.”

Man.. I think we can all agree that those years on the taekwando squad were bitching!

Snaps from the new lens..

So my old kit lens would take a shot like this (when fully backed out)


My new lens does this:



when fully backed out.. but that still doesn't quite show the difference, since the photos are the same size. So in Photoshop I did this...


The black representing what the old lens caught.

OTOH shooting vertically..

This




turns to this


With photoshop revealing:


Totally worth the money at under $250.00.

Now I need a macro and a nice 70-200mm piece and my lens collection will be solid

Best Rap Song since All the Computers Crashed in 2000

Asplain to me the one that is better....

Hell, one of the lyrics is "I ain't passed the bar"

and I so identify!

At Steve's Request!

Steve from my rant down below, commented that if I'm going to go ape, I should at least recognize his current blog.

Steve's current blog can be found at http://tentaclesforbreakfast.blogspot.com

"Current" is a sketchy term though. When he posts it is interesting and often epic, but man.. months pass... The last post seems to be from 2008?

I may have to go over there and leave a comment , it's a bit sparse. ;-)

Noted With Disgust...

Mike McStay...

a guy I used to work with at Woosong. He has, maybe, cancer. Tumors at least. He ended up in the emergency room a few weeks ago, getting some bits cut out. He needs to go back and get more cut out and we should all pray (although I don't exactly pray!) that the tumor is non-malignant.

Mike McStay....

A guy who I disagree with on every political level that you can imagine.
Yeah, fine, we could still have a beer.

Mike McStay

The guy who spent hours getting my fiancee (who has little fingers that dont' bend at the knuckle - my belief is that is so she can hit me harder) to get her fingerprints on that stupid card.

Mike McStay

A cool guy to crack a beer with.
Did I say that?
You sense my obsession? ;-)

Mike McStay

Pretty (in the unpretty - ;-p - ) serious about movies.

Mike McStay

Probably fighting for his life.. so then there's Stevie Bee

ah..

let's just say that old Stevie thinks Mike is a tad judgmental. So he returns that judgment in spades.

Complete dickhead.. who has a blog in which he tries to be offensive. No one comments of course, but perhaps that is his triumph?

now I'm going to sleep and pretend that most people who agree with me politically aren't self-satisfied judgmental aresholes..

Like old Stevie is..

Number One Cause of Hospitalization in Korea

Hemorrhoids

This is a thing I did not want to know, and now you know it also.

Heinie Flu here at Korea Times

A question of "hipsterdom"

How often do I have to skip over "Aqua Boogie (A Psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop)" on my iPod before I should just delete it and recognize that no one is ever going to look at my library and say.. "whoooa! dude.. Aqua Boogie (A Psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop).. yer so cool!"?

Academic Palaver

Just received this nearly incomprehensible email that, on the positive side, is not one of the 100 "Obama makes qualifying for a loan easy" emails I've received in the last three days:

online education for liberation will focus on the societal, social, political, economic and philosophical perspectives of transformative models how digital learning communities foster critical reflections and perspective change; experience systemic or covert discriminations; and also discuss the liberation topic from a progressive viewpoint. Thus, the proposed publication attempts to build a better understanding on how online educators/designers/tutors/learners can talk about injustice and inequality to a virtual group with an identity of privilege, and revealing about racism and cover racism to diverse people, sexism to men and women, heterosexism to straight people. This is important to scrutinize transformative models how to bring a global and multicultural partnership of faculty, administrators, professionals, teachers, community activists, researchers and parents as well as understand and challenge the injustices digital societies face. In the fields of online education, liberation, models for social equality, etc., there exists a need for an edited collection of chapters in this area.

Jesus.. that's a crapload of cant and as an academic writing professor I'd just like the author to pick one approach (preferably a grammatically correct one, but I'd settle for consistency) on how to approach "how."

The use of "about" is also extra-grammatical.

But mainly.. it's a steaming pile of academic horseshit..

"discuss the liberation topic"

doesn't that mean "discuss liberation?" Or is there a liberation 'atopic?" Entropic? Dystopic? Why write like that?

And:

and revealing about racism and cover racism to diverse people, sexism to men and women,

holy cow... they now have "cover" racists? Is that like bands and cover bands, or just pathetic writing?

Finally, the last sentence of the big quote up above just makes me want to cry:

Redundant "fields" and "area"
"there exists a need for"
the "edited" thing..

Somewhere in Hell, Mencken and Orwell are arguing over who is responsible for this kind of trash writing.

Get a real job you uber-academic troll - someday it will make your theoretical moaning more authentic.

Ah Jesus.. I mean... Ah Evolution.. this picture is quite funny

Thanks FARK!

Working it...

Two bits of good news on the work front..

First, I will have a class at the beginning of the summer session. So that should add about 1k won to the kitty for the trips to the US and Philippines.

Second, the BKF informs me we will have major translation/editing job later in the summer. That should land a few more ducats on me as well.

If I can pick up some scrap-work in the interim, that would also be grand. Tomorrow I will find out if I have actually been having my overtime money deposited in my bank. I don't think I've seen it, but today I will get my ending balance and tomorrow will tell that particular tale.

LOL.. that's right!

That would be three book reviews by me, published in 10 Magazine Asia. Not yet a literary juggernaut, but a convenient thing to do until that time comes..

Burgled!

After being down (for I am nothing if not down) in Daejeon with the lovely Yvonne I came back to find my flat had been burgled..

well, about Daejeon first.

I needed a break from Seoul, so directly after work on Friday I caught the KTX down to Daejeon where Yvonne and I pigged out on Sam Gyap Sal and got a cheap Yeogwan in Eunhaengdong. Next day we got up, had some coffee and stuff, ran into Scott at the Starbucks, and then spent a few hours jamming around the market. At 4 we walked over to Woosong Staff Housing unit A (the "A" in the name is about the order of construction of housing, not the quality of the housing).

There we chilled with many old Woosongers and Woosongettes as the charred flesh and soju slid past bloody gums, down ulcerated esophagi and into contented bellies. Those two pictures here are from Mr. Michael Peacock's collection. The picture up above shows Yvonne about to rock out with her cock out. Or whatever chicks do. It also shows my bald spot. The one below shows my enormous head, which can be spotted on Google Earth. It also shows an Australian known as "Rodney" apparently about to ask for the photographers phone number, or ask her when she "came down to Earth." If he moves that inverted fanny-pack down just a bit? Impressive codpiece my Australian friend, impressive codpiece!

At evening's end we walked back to the Yeogwan - probably about a 30 minute walk in my partially inebriated state and arose the next morning to more Starbucks cofffe, bookshopping for Yvonne, and a cafe for me, to prep for my Auditory class on Monday morning.

Back to her hood for some delicious Galbi Tang (I also had soju).

Just as I was trying to make my escape (and with a suitcase full of stuff that had been stuck at Yvonne's pad since my move three months ago) Yvonne thought I should meet her coworker Donnie (sp?). Which was grand, but he did pull out some remainder of a bottle of vodka that now, well, does not remain. ;-)

We sat around his apartment and talked shit until it was time for me to catch a cab to the KTX and then a train on up to Seoul.

Once in Seoul, I actually caught a cab to my place.. a thing I never do, but I didn't want to have to drag the books with me.

I got home.. opened my door..

and the place had been burgled!

Everything dirty had been taken.

The pillows were back on the sofa.

The floor was clean... DEWD! They took my FILTH!!!!!!!

Apparently the ajumma did her quarterly apartment check and had a go at the messy bits of mine.

I silently thanked god that the Wednesday before I had totally cleaned the bathrooom and my office. If she had come in on Tuesday I might have been evicted.

It's funny, if a landlord in the US pulled a stunt like this I'd be angrified. Here? Par for the course and in fact she did me a favor.

heh..