On change, saying no, and staying too long at the fair

A city this size has a million pitfalls. The clubs are always open when you need them, the bars always have a place for you to sit, and there's always a friend somewhere doing something. It's hard to say no to your friends. It's hard to slow things down.

Joan Didion, in Slouching Towards Bethlehem, was the same age as I am now when she wrote "Goodbye To All That." Her city was New York, mine is Seoul. There are a lot of other differences, but there are also a lot of similarities. A few choice passages from that essay:

That was the year, my twenty-eighth, when I was discovering that not all of the promises would be kept, that some things are in fact irrevocable and that it had counted after all, every evasion and every procrastination, every mistake, every word, all of it. (pp.233)

I remember one day when ... we both had hangovers, and I cut my finger opening him a beer and burst into tears, and we walked to a Spanish restaurant and drank Bloody Marys and gazpacho until we felt better. I was not then guilt-ridden about spending afternoons that way, because I still had all the afternoons in the world.

And even that late in the game I still liked going to parties, all parties, bad parties, Saturday-afternoon parties given by recently married couples ... parties given by unpublished or failed writers who served cheap red wine and talked about going to Guadalajara ... parties where all the guests worked for advertising agencies and voted for Reform Democrats, press parties ... the worst kinds of parties.

You will have perceived by now that I was not one to profit by the experience of others, that it was a very long time indeed before I stopped believing in new faces and began to understand the lesson in that story, which was that it is distinctly possible to stay too long at the Fair. I could not tell you when I began to understand that.

All I know is that it was very bad when I was twenty-eight. Everything that was said to me I seemed to have heard before, and I could no longer listen ... I no longer had any interest in hearing about the advances other people had received from their publishers, about plays which were having second-act trouble in Philadelphia, or about people I would like very much if only I would come out and meet them. I had already met them, always. (pp. 235-6)

I'm not as over it nor is it as bad for me as Didion puts it. I don't believe that I have already met everyone that could tell me something new. I don't believe I'll ever feel like that. But there is a lot of truth in what she is feeling, and how it resonates with what I see in my days. If anything, the essay is about growth. It takes a lot of honesty and discipline to get to that next place.

Paddle in to a 30-foot wave?

This will be something to see.

The breakers can top 30 feet. If surfers in the competition miss the ideal drop-in spot and get sucked into its crashing whitewater, they can expect to languish in the deep for up to a minute. When they resurface, another mammoth wave could be towering overhead, ready to pummel them back below all over again.

The Lekman show: Happy and over too soon

The Jens Lekman show at Freebird last night was fun. Some stupid, obnoxious behavior in places (really, who runs into a crowd and starts a three-way jumpfest during "Black Cab" [and who was breaking all those bottles?]) but a good time. The show was completely over sold, way past fire code, and Lekman's set was too short. But it felt good to have somebody like that playing. And the people in the crowd seemed happy to have something to be excited about. (Check Roboseyo's post here.)

On a side note: I talked to the promoter and he said that he had a lot of trouble with Lekman's Korea representation. They didn't return his emails. They didn't come to the show. They wouldn't even show up to sell his merch and maybe make them and their artist some money. "He's not popular in Korea," they said. It feels like there really is a lack of support for unproven artists here. Why is that?

Hongdae working on its indie cred

Here's the link to the story I wrote about Jens Lekman. They're only selling tickets at the door now for the Freebird show tonight, and sales start at 7:30. This is going to be really fun.

A brief overview of the automotive clause in the KORUS-FTA and how it impacts both countries

I wrote this for the Nov. 19, 2008 edition of the Korea Herald:

The automotive clause of the Korea-United States Free Trade Agreement is but one part of a multi-faceted agreement. However, U.S. president-elect Barack Obama, along with other key U.S. lawmakers, has focused specifically on an ailing U.S. automotive industry as a crucial economic concern. Couple that with slumping demand and weak profits worldwide causing problems for Korean carmakers, and the importance of the passenger vehicle section of the KORUS-FTA becomes more pronounced.

During the first U.S. presidential debate on Sept. 27, 2008, Obama said “We have to... invest in alternative energy, solar, wind, bio diesel, making sure that we're developing the fuel-efficient cars of the future right here in the United States, in Ohio and Michigan, instead of Japan and South Korea.”

The National Assembly trade committee met on Nov. 13 to discuss the ratification of the FTA, which was first agreed upon in April 2007 under the Roh Moo-hyun administration. The committee met with intense partisan bickering, with one side suggesting a quick ratification to fend off a renegotiation demand from the coming Obama administration.

U.S. exports to Korea

As it stands now, American automobiles have been suffering from a diminished reputation in the eyes of the international community. Claims of poor fuel efficiency, lack of durability and cumbersome size have all contributed to U.S. autos’ decreased appeal worldwide. While the quality of American cars is debatable, there are legislative and economic factors at play as well.

The rest of the story.

Bill Ayers talks about palling around with Barack Obama

From the Salon interview:

One of the delicious ironies of a campaign filled with ironies was that the McCain campaign tried to use me to bring Obama down -- and every time that he mentioned my name his poll numbers dropped. Again, I think that's a big credit to the American people. But I did see a few clips. I saw the clip where she [Palin] first talked about Barack Obama palling around with terrorists and the crowd shouted, "Kill him, kill him." That was sent to me by my kids.

I don't know if you remember the Two Minutes Hate in George Orwell's "1984"? In Two Minutes Hate, the party faithful gather in front of a television screen and the image of Emmanuel Goldstein is cast up on the screen and they work themselves into a frenzy of hatred and they begin to chant, "Kill him." That's how I felt. I felt a little bit like I was this character cast on the screen. It bore no relation to me. And yet it had a serious purpose and potentially serious consequences.

The rest of the story.

You can't surf in all 50 states

I want to know what they surfed in Nebraska.

“We met a good doctor and had good surgery. We feel very lucky.”

Need a new hip, Grandpa? Come to Korea.

South Korea has joined Thailand, Singapore, India and other Asian nations in the lucrative business of medical tourism. Heart bypasses, spinal surgery, hip-joint replacements, cosmetic surgery — procedures that may cost tens of thousands of dollars in the United States — can often be done for one-third or even one-tenth of the cost in Asia, with much shorter waiting times and by specialists often trained in the West.

The War Is Over

And America is doing a lot of other stuff right, according to this fake edition of the New York Times.

Less meat, less junk, more plants

Eat crap, become crap.

The kimchi problem

This is a good blanket story for anyone trying to understand modern South Korea.

And now it seems this nation -- which worked its way from the Third World to the First World in a single generation, and whose people show the strain by working more hours, consuming more hard liquor, having more sex and committing more suicides than in any other country -- is facing another culture clash between traditional identity and a globalizing world: the kimchi deficit.

7:23:50 a.m. Nov. 4 (MST)

Today I was walking out of my Korean class with Gabriel, this tall skinny hipster kid from Switzerland.

"The next time I see you either I'll be ashamed to be an American," I said. "Or I'll be feeling a lot better about America."

"Yah, I don't think I could not be ashamed to be an American," he said.

"Oh, you hate America. It's cool to hate to America."

"I don't hate the people. I hate the country."

I took the underpass and he took the subway. Then I got on my bike and rode down to the gym. I had a good run on the treadmill listening to White Blood Cells and watching Korean television pundits dissect the election. But after that I couldn't work out properly, I couldn't focus on anything. All I was thinking about was tomorrow, about Obama, about America, about how important it felt and how I couldn't prepare myself for a McCain win.

I just want to scream...HELLLOO

Last weekend in Jirisan I finally found my norae bang song. Now if I can just find "Better Man."

Pearl Jam: "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town"

Black Cab! Black Cab! Black Cab!

That's what I'm going to be yelling when Jens Lekman comes to Seoul. He's playing Freebird (really?) two nights, Nov. 29 and 30.

Jens and crew singing "A Sweet Summer's Night On Hammer Hill"

Are you making fun of me?

Whomever it is over at Dokdo Is Ours did a nice little parody of the story I wrote about Brian Deutsch and bloggers in Korea.

"But really, what does Brian's blog mean to you?"

"It means I don't have to dig around on Dave's ESL Cafe, because he does. Brian has saved me a lot of effort, and he's funneling off a lot of the trolls and VANKers that used to load up my comment boards."

"You SUCK!" somebody shouted from a corner of the room. Nobody even paid attention.