a partial, annotated list of modern Korean fiction in English translation
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gateway of literature by and about Korean adoptees
including a link to 'ten thousand sorrows' which has a taint of the new age and something else I may not be able to read far enough to gather. the lesson of embarrassment the knee-jerk enthusiasm for the package, the quickness and facile optimism only skin deep, and the fun of putting neat images up. but I got the book and it doesn't ring true.
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also at A Better Chance

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Wayfarer: New Fiction by Korean Women

{not "here I am reading this exotic and fulfilling literature of another culture", but the hard and sure deep immersion into the real world of the other. real world, when you're there you only know it afterward, because when you're there you're only there. these women are heirs to a culture that must have had centuries of discipline behind it, 'must have' not because of historical fact but evidenced in the work they bring to the page. soul-anthems, frost on the long road, foreign lipstick, traditional clothing in an old trunk in a cramped apartment, brilliant minds in a cold dark season.}

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Contemporary Korean Fiction

"I’ve entertained the idea that I might just be getting old. But if it’s a function of my age that I remember hip hop as the people’s champ, so be it. I was raised on a vital art form that has now become a computer-generated character doing the cabbage patch in a commercial, or a comedian ‘raising the roof.’ That’s not influence to me, that’s mockery.
Hip hop my friend, it’s been a great 30 years filled with great memories, and it’s been fun to watch you grow. We’ve got dozens of broke innovators and plenty of mediocre millionaires out of the deal, but I really need my space now and we’ve got to go our separate ways. I will always love you, but it’s time for me to move on.
Yo, what happened to peace?

Peace.
Pierre Bennu "Fuck hip-hop" @dissident voice

"When a leading Muslim cleric in New Delhi called on Indian Muslims to join the jihad in Afghanistan last year, Indian actress and activist Shabana Azmi, a Muslim and an appointed senator, suggested in a nationally televised interview that it would be no problem to air-drop the robed cleric into Kandahar to wage his holy war there.

No less sensational was the fiery response of the shahi imam of Jama Masjid, one of the leading imams of New Delhi: "I won't respond to singing, dancing whores."
-
While shooting a film about a shantytown, Azmi decided to observe a slum dweller for her role, and the two women became friends. A visit by Azmi to her friend's grim tenement shocked her into activism.

Upon her return to Bombay, she went on a five-day hunger strike to stop government demolition of slums, in the absence of an alternative.

"I have been the butt of Hindu and Muslim threats and intimidation," said Azmi, recalling the furor her film "Fire" sparked in 1996 with a story about two sisters-in-law who fall in love and seek erotic solace to escape their unhappiness. Mobs attacked the theater, tearing out the furniture, and the actress was accused of being "wicked" and "criminal" by extremist Hindu parties such as Shiv Sena."

Shabana Azmi


director Deepa Mehta

something else you won't see in the land of the free

Suzanne Valadon
believed that "painting was the most difficult [medium] in which to reach greatness." She worked for thirteen years on her oils before she showed them. ...her early Portrait of Eric Satie. The musician, who was to be called "The Father of Modern Music", met Suzanne Valadon at the Auberge du Clou, a boisterous and inexpensive nightclub, where he played the piano. An eccentric and penniless bohemian, Satie affected a top hat, a flowing lavaliere, and wore a pince-nez. His room in 6 rue Cortot was next door to Valadon's, with whom he had a six-month liaison. The affair began on January 14, 1893, and Satie proposed marriage that same night. He immediately became obsessed with the artist, whom he called his "Biqui", writing impassioned notes about "her whole being, lovely eyes, gentle hands, and tiny feet." Valadon did Satie's portrait and gave it to him, while the musician did hers, which he kept. The two works hung together and were found after Satie's death in his room at Arceuil.

Cahun not only continued to make photographs in her new surroundings, but also began to transfer her strategies of masquerade from artistic production to political activity. With Malherbe as coconspirator, she launched a covert anti-Nazi resistance operation in which both women assumed disguises to undermine the German occupation. Cahun and Malherbe were arrested, tried, and sentenced to death, but ultimately released from prison at the war's end. In the meantime, much of Cahun's work had been confiscated or destroyed by German soldiers. She continued making photographs until her death in 1954.

Fruitful Prophetic Iranian

Prayer for the Sun

in their own hands

Though this album contains a few soft-rock throwaways, such as "In My Life" and "Desperado," Mr. Cash’s more surprising borrowings—Nine Inch Nails’ "Hurt" and Depeche Mode’s "Personal Jesus," in particular—reaffirm his right to pirate anything he wants. Ultimately, though, it’s the title song that clinches this album’s greatness. The product of a seven-year-old, "Kubla Khan"–like dream about the Book of Revelation, it’s a thumping, staccato masterpiece destined to survive among the handful of Mr. Cash’s lasting contributions to American music.

{now we have class. pay attention. Boilly is the painter here. first thing you notice is....depends on your orientation somewhat, but. the central point in the image is a shading in and out above the old couple's heads. contrast that with the light from above. and the thin band of light at the door. and who is that guy? not significant guy right? only check out the girl just below him. she's the same figure as what most people would say is THE central figure in the image. ok check out where her head is. right in front of the guy's elbow. the guy is Boilly. elbows are everywhere in this painting. an elbow is the dominant foreground image. it balances her right breast, the most lovingly rendered breast I've ever seen. the guy's elbow her elbow and Junior's there at her left. now drop down and over what do you see? it's a timeline of growth it starts to seem almost bludgeoningly obvious. infant/breast toddler/breast then right at the moment of puberty and full bloomed young womanhood. ok go back to the nursing mom at left. see her head? what's it hiding? and above him to his left? another one. below that. ok on the other side of the billiard player past the dogs there's a guy who is almost all shadow, and being embraced by a girl who's mostly light, and now her head is hidden by... right. my first attraction to this painting was the girl/woman bending over the table, but then where was the center? that shading, amorphous place with no boundaries exactly not exactly brown or black, the center of the image is ah.... there and there and somewhere in there....and below that the old woman's face, almost in the center, and the pool cue pointing, could it be? to the place above the couple where their souls meet? something valentinish like that, something sentimental like that. but not cynical that's the key issue here. cynicism can't touch this stuff. the center is there, imprecisely, because....well it moves around really. he makes it move. there's some pretty hardcore courtship happening far right, and bright as can be at the edge of the shadows, her arm, her...yes another one. and at the far right edge of the billiard table see the boy, his...yes...and blocking his head her.....yes. and I don't mean to make it freakish, it isn't at all. he's playing. it's elegant play, and so much love for the movement of life, for women, for sex, and for the breast itself not separate from but in and of the warm heart of womanhood. it's there. you can ignore it or turn away from it, but it's not a choice really, it's there because Boilly put it there. the shadowy figure near center is echoed again to the far right, these guys are hats, father hats, fatherly hats, men. men and elbows. Boilly. A Game of Billiards. corny maybe some, but that love is bigger than sentiment. that love is real, nothing living is bigger.}

design addict is rich

Perry King designed the valentine typewriter with Ettore Sotsass.
his studio King-Miranda designed this light:

Elio Martinelli bubble lamp

This man said this:

describe your style, like a good friend of yours would describe it.

I truly believe that our duty as an architect or a designer is to design
things which attract luck, rooms which protect people...
I don’t design things in any style, even less so in any fashion style,
I design things for life states.

designed this house:

designed this:


and this room divider.

and said this:

you have spent a lot of time in asia and you know the spiritual values of those
cultures very well. do you think that they tend to fuse with our wasteful
western culture, or do you think there is another possibility?

the thing about asia which interested me wasn’t so much the spirituality
as the sensorial approach, the rituals...there is nothing spiritual in spirituality.
the word spirituality was invented in the 19th century. I hate that word...
it is finding a way to forget the existential disaster, it is a series of rituals,
which correspond to the cosmos and they are rituals which
depend on your social class, the weather,
the relationship to animals-- this interests me. I think that any attempt
to integrate into the modern world can only be "pay attention to life",
existence, but not afterlife.

on the news they said that italians are afraid of unemployment,
criminality and pollution. what are you afraid of regarding
the future?

I think that the future doesn’t exist. what we think of today as the future isn’t the future.
people are always afraid of the future, and the future has always been a disaster.
like the present is a disaster. but rhetoric about the future bothers me,
because almost everything we do today we say we’re doing for the future.
the future is here now, let’s try to get organized now.
I don’t care about the future at all.

Magnetic bracelet
Terrence Kelleman, 2002
Held together by its own magnetic force, this bracelet is designed to form angular shapes around the wrist. The bracelet consists of 50 individual magnets, which can be adjusted to fit men or women simply by removing excess pieces. The incredible strength serves not only as a simple linking mechanism, but also provides hours of entertainment or relaxation for nervous fingers. Warning: These magnets are very strong; those using a pacemaker should avoid them. Keep 5 inches from computer disks, credit cards and any ferric recording devices.