He aquí los pensamientos aleatorios de un epistemólogo andante.
I dream of a world where chickens can cross the road without having their motives questioned.
피할수 없는 고통이라면 차라리 즐겨라
As of June, 2013, I have assumed a new identity: I am a cancer survivor. "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose."
"A blog, in the end, is really not so different from an inscription on a bone: I was here, it declares to no one in particular. Don't forget that." - Justin E. H. Smith
재미없으면 보상해드립니다!
"All things are enchained with one another, bound together by love." - Nietzsche (really!)
Leviticus 19:33-34
Donc, si Dieu existait, il n’y aurait pour lui qu’un seul moyen de servir la liberté humaine, ce serait de cesser d’exister. - Mikhail Bakunin
Solvitur ambulando.
"Sometimes I wonder why I even bother to soliloquize. Where was I?" - the villain Heinz Doofenshmirtz, in the cartoon Phineas and Ferb.
My name is Jared Way. I was born in rural Far Northern California, and became an "adoptive" Minnesotan. I have lived in many other places: Mexico City, Philadelphia, Valdivia (Chile), Los Angeles. And for 11 years, I was an expatriate living in South Korea. In the summer of 2018, I made another huge change, and relocated to Southeast Alaska, which is my uncle's home.
For many years I was a database programmer, with a background in Linguistics and Spanish Literature. In Korea, worked as an EFL teacher.
In June, 2013, while I was in Ilsan in South Korea, I was diagnosed with cancer, and underwent successful treatment. That changed my life pretty radically.
Currently, you could say I'm "between jobs," somewhat caretaking my uncle (to the extent he tolerates that) and getting adapted to life in rural Alaska after so many years as an urban dweller.
I started this blog before I even had the idea of going to Korea (first entry: Caveat: And lo...). So this is not meant to be a blog about Korea, by any stretch of the imagination. But life in Korea, and Korean language and culture, inevitably have come to play a central role in this blog's current incarnation.
Basically, this blog is a newsletter for the voices in my head. It keeps everyone on the same page: it has become a sort of aide-mémoire.
For a more detailed reflection on why I'm blogging, you can look at this old post: What this blog is, and isn't.
If you're curious about me, there is a great deal of me here. I believe in what I call "opaque transparency" - you can learn almost everything about me if you want, but it's not immediately easy to find.
A distillation of my personal philosophy (at least on good days):
I have made the realization that happiness is not a mental state. It is not something that is given to you, or that you find, or that you can lose, or that can be taken from you. Happiness is something that you do. And like most things that you do, it is volitional. You can choose to do happiness, or not. You have complete freedom with respect to the matter.
"Ethical joy is the correlate of speculative affirmation." - Gilles Deleuze (writing about Spinoza).
Like most people, I spend a lot of time online, although I try to limit it somewhat. Here is a somewhat-annotated list of the "places" where I spend
time online.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Knowledge and News
I spend about half of all my time online reading Wikipedia. It's why I know stuff.
I get most of my world news from Minnesota Public Radio which includes NPR, BBC and CBC, depending on when I listen.
I don't really "do" social media. I have a membership at Facebookland but I never log in
there. I don't like it.
I have a membership at The Youtubes but I mostly use it for work. I also listen to music on youtube, frequently - I prefer it to typical streaming services, for example.
Humor and Cat Videos
Cat videos and other internet novelties: Laughing Squid.
Geofiction - this has evolved into a significant "hobby" for me. I like to draw imaginary maps, and there is a website that has enabled this vice.
I worked as a volunteer administrator for the site OpenGeofiction on and off for a few years. I created (but no longer maintain) the site's main wiki page: OGF Wiki. I am not currently working as administrator but I remain active on the site.
The above work has required my becoming an expert in the Openstreetmap system. Openstreetmap is an attempt do for online maps what wikipedia has done for encyclopedias. I have considered becoming an openstreetmap contributor, but I feel that my current location in Korea hinders that, since I don't have a good grasp Korean cartographic naming conventions.
Starting in April, 2018, I decided somewhat capriciously to build my own "OGF stack" on my own server. This was not because I intended to abandon the OGF site, but rather because I wanted to better understand the whole architecture and all its parts. I built a wiki on the Mediawiki platform (the same as wikipedia). This wiki has no content. I built a map tileserver and geospatial database, which contains a very low resolution upload of an imaginary planet called Rahet. And I built a wordpress blog, which is a separate, low-frequency blog intended to focus on my geofictional pursuits rather than this more personalized, general purpose blog. All of these things can be found integrated together on my rent-a-server, here: geofictician.net
TEFL - my "profession," such as it is.
Online English Grammar reference Grammarist. Useful for settling disputes over grammar.
"I bow with a thankful heart and become aware that I and others are one."
This is #67 out of a series of 108 daily Buddhist affirmations that I am attempting to translate with my hands tied behind my back (well not really that, but I'm deliberately not seeking out translations on the internet, using only dictionary and grammar).
I would read this sixty-seventh affirmation as: "I bow with a thankful heart and become aware that I and others are one."
I have no idea if I got that right or not. It seems right, it fits with Buddhist themes, but I really had to guess at the first three words "나와 남이 하나임" as not even the dictionary was being exceptionally helpful.
I've been really depressed about my Korean-learning project, lately. I overhear things, and just don't understand what's going on. This morning was a typical example: there was one of those "building announcements" over my apartment's intercom, and I understood "this is an announcement" and "so, telling you this one more time," but I didn't get any actual useful information out of the announcement. I've clearly lost the gumption I had to sign up for a morning language class - too overwhelmed by the commute required.
I've been playing around with trying to figure out how to calculate the distances of my evening jogging. I have just been guesstimating up to this point, but today I found an app connected to google maps called mapmywalk.com that works fine for South Korea. So I used it. It turns out that the route I was thinking of as 5 km was actually a little under 4 (so much for guesstimating, right?). I worked out a slightly different route that was a little over 5, and tonight, I ran it. And here it is. I like map-apps.
Meanwhile. I'm feeling a bit grumpy about work, today. The "write me a textbook" project is going badly, and I felt like a kind of boring, crappy teacher today for the classes I had. Sigh. Not every day is good, right?
What I'm listening to right now.
This song has awesome lyrics. Check'em out.
I think the kids are in trouble Do not know what all the troubles are for Give them ice for their fevers You're the only thing I ever want anymore
We live on coffee and flowers Try not to wonder what the weather will be I figured out what we're missing I tell you miserable things after you are asleep
Now we'll leave the silver city 'cause all the silver girls Gave us black dreams Leave the silver city 'cause all the silver girls Everything means everything
It's a Hollywood summer You'll never believe the shitty thoughts I think Meet our friends out for dinner When I said what I said, I didn't mean anything
We belong in a movie Try to hold it together 'til our friends are gone We should swim in a fountain Do not want to disappoint anyone
Now we'll leave the silver city 'cause all the silver girls Gave us black dreams Leave the silver city to all the silver girls Everything means everything
I was afraid I'd eat your brains I was afraid I'd eat your brains 'Cause I'm evil 'Cause I'm evil
I'm a confident liar Have my head in the oven so you know where I'll be I'll try to be more romantic I want to believe in everything you believe
I was less than amazing Do not know what all the troubles are for Fall asleep in your branches You're the only thing I ever want anymore
Now we'll leave the silver city 'cause all the silver girls Gave us black dreams Leave the silver city to all the silver girls Everything means everything
I was afraid I'd eat your brains I was afraid I'd eat your brains 'Cause I'm evil 'Cause I'm evil 'Cause I'm evil
Korean terms for family members seem quite overwhelming to those of us trying to learn the language. First of all, there are so many of them. But second of all, Koreans use many of those terms quite freely with people they aren't related to: in particular, because of the social prohbition, under most circumstances, against addressing one's elders by their names, many of the various terms for relatives are used for directly addressing (i.e. talking to, calling out to) older friends and acquaintances. These many "terms of direct address" take the place of the word "you," too, since the various Korean words for "you" seem mostly reserved for advertising copy (e.g. 당신) and talking with children (e.g. 너).
I finally found a blog page that summarizes many of the vocabulary items for relatives and family relations pretty well. I recommend it, but even that summary seems to miss a lot of useful and important information.
For example, during a recent unit on English-language family terms with a fairly low-level 3rd/4th/5th grade class, I realized that they were using the term I had learned meant nephew/niece (조카 [joka]) to mean what we would call "first cousin once removed" (a horrible term - more colloquially we always just said "cousin" in the family reuinion type settings when I was growing up). Which to say, in the term 조카 there is embedded a sort of generational concept.
In researching that word 조카 at an online dictionary, I found some additional complications on it that aren't covered on the above-referenced web page:
I'm sure that for almost all of the terms on that webpage, a little research would dig up similar elaborations.
Also, there's a whole other set of terms of direct address that seem to apply to schoolmates and coworkers, only a few of which I can recognize. Many of these are generic job titles, in the vein of 실장님 [siljangnim = "office manager," roughly], which is, for example, the term I should be using for the front-desk-lady at work.
But others aren't really titles at all, but bear on the generational separation between the two individuals: I've recently been becoming aware of 선배 [seonbae] a lot in the Korean drama I'm currently watching - the word means schoolmate or workmate who is "ahead" of one, in seniority terms (it's not clear to me if this is relative seniority or actually years of age - for example, if I'm older but start at a given company later, is someone ahead of me in the seniority chain but younger than me in age a 선배?). It's translated as "senior" but that utterly fails to capture its actual usage.
One thing I've never seen is a truly satisfying list, in one place, of ALL the terms of direct address that Koreans use: mostly when you see someone discussing Korean terms of direct address you get a few examples and then some annoying comment to the effect of: Koreans have hundreds if not thousands of terms of direct address, including names for relatives and titles of coworkers and schoolmates, etc. So my request is: how about a list? I guess it will have to be another little project of mine. Maybe someday.
Look out of any window any morning, any evening, any day Maybe the sun is shining birds are winging or rain is falling from a heavy sky - What do you want me to do, to do for you to see you through? this is all a dream we dreamed one afternoon long ago Walk out of any doorway feel your way, feel your way like the day before Maybe you'll find direction around some corner where it's been waiting to meet you - What do you want me to do, to watch for you while you're sleeping? Well please don't be surprised when you find me dreaming too
Look into any eyes you find by you, you can see clear through to another day I know it's been seen before through other eyes on other days while going home -- What do you want me to do, to do for you to see you through? It's all a dream we dreamed one afternoon long ago
Walk into splintered sunlight Inch your way through dead dreams to another land Maybe you're tired and broken Your tongue is twisted with words half spoken and thoughts unclear What do you want me to do to do for you to see you through A a box of rain will ease the pain and love will see you through
Just a box of rain - wind and water - Believe it if you need it, if you don't just pass it on Sun and shower - Wind and rain - in and out the window like a moth before a flame
It's just a box of rain I don't know who put it there Believe it if you need it or leave it if you dare But it's just a box of rain or a ribbon for your hair Such a long long time to be gone and a short time to be there
I'm not sure how I'm feeling about work. On the one hand, it's mostly pretty unstressful. On the other hand, I'm not having as much interaction with kids as I did at Hongnong nor even at LBridge: because Karma combines "test prep" with regular English curriculum, during this midterms cycle the kids get pulled out for special test prep courses, which is great if the stress of giving classes gets to me, but it is annoying if hanging out with kids in class is the highlight of my work day. At least at Hongnong, although I often had no classes to teach, I still got to interact with kids around the school and at lunch, etc. There's no deskwarming at Karma, though. Mostly I'm filling my time with curriculum development work - I'm writing a textbook, supposedly (which is really hard, actually), and doing iBT (TOEFL) prep tutoring with a really smart 9th grader.
I really meant to enroll in a Korean language course for the mornings, but I've been unable to summon the gumption. It's not the idea of 12 hours a week of language class that's putting me off (that's what most of the courses I've looked at offer), it's the additional 12 hours a week of commuting time that it would entail - none of the courses are closer than Hongdae or Jongno, both of which would involve more-than-an-hour-each-way commutes. I hate commuting.
I've been looking into trying to find a tutor who I could pay for one-on-one classes, out here in Ilsan. But I'm kind of picky about who I'm willing to pay as a tutor - most Koreans don't know squat about their own language, from a linguistics standpoint, and I find it very frustrating trying to learn from them. Unpaid hanging-out style efforts at conversation is fine - I can approach it like a field linguist doing research. That's what many of my Korean friends are for.
But if I'm going to pay someone, I want them to know their language's phonological inventory (and know how it differs from that of English, for example), and I'd appreciate if they could recognize the difference between an auxialiary verb and an example of verb seriality, etc., and have them subsequently be able to try to explain these things to me - you know, like actually teach me.
I suppose my complaint about the people I've paid to teach me Korean, in the past, is the flipside of the same, utterly legitimate complaint lodged against so many of the English speakers hired to teach English in Korea - the fact that they can't tell a modal verb or English prosodic vowel reduction from a hole in their posterior means that Korean students aren't really getting much bang for their won, in teaching terms.
What I'm listening to right now.
I jogged my 5km route last night, dodging drizzle and rain drops. I listened to this track on my mp3. I'm becoming incredibly annoyed with the fact that I've gotten back to a 4 or 5 night-a-week jogging habit, and I'm still not losing weight.
This morning, I'm listening to it again. It's raining hard against my windows, and the sky is the thick gray that makes it feel like the sun didn't quite finish rising.
It's been raining a lot - yesterday there was a respite, but aside from that it's been raining almost continuously for approaching a week now. Yey summer in Korea.
The lyrics.
Pour Me Another (Another Poor Me) From the album "You Can't Imagine How Much Fun We're Having"
V:1 And all she wanted was a little bit of solid, Feels like love, it doesnt matter what you call it, Heal those cuts, or hide em underneath the polish, Break another promise, And take me as a hostage, Hold your job down, And let the zombies crowd around, Thankin mommys god, but its a cops town, Keep it safe for me, While I chase a fantasy, Swerving through the galaxy, Searching for a family, Happily surrounded by planets and stars, She was stuck uptown, you was landed on mars, Its all fucked up now, caught your hand in the jar, Another small step back, for that man at the bar, Spill a little bit of blood on the street, For love that goes to those who know, That they drink too much, And hold your own glass, Up to the heavens, Take the little time to try and count the seconds, It goes
[Pour me another, So I can forget you now, Pour me another, So I can come let you down, Pour me another, So I can remember how, True that I am to this addiction of you,] x2
V:2 Drink it all away, numb it down to the none, Stay awake tonight and wait for the sun, You say you hate your life, you aint the only one, Let your frustration out the gate and watch the pony run, One double for the hunger and the struggle, Two for the fool tryna pull apart the puzzle, Three now I smile while I wait for your rebuttal, By the forth shot, Im just another child in a bubble, Tryna play with the passion and the placement, Just to see what these people let him get away with, Still tryna climb a mountain for you, Hammer in my hand, still pounding on a screw, She no listen, so he dont speak no more, Nobodys winning, cause neither is keeping score, Dont wanna think no more, just let me drink some more, Pour me another, cause I can still see the floor,
[Pour me another, So I can forget you now, Pour me another, So I can come let you down, Pour me another, So I can remember how, True that I am to this addiction of you,] x2
V:3 Live life tipsy, stiff if it dont fit right with me, Kiss my whiskey; lift my lips press to my angel, Swallow it and leave her empty bottle on the table, Let the past fall, Making faces at that clock on the back wall, Countdown to last call, Ask all of these people that make sounds, How long does it take for the pace to break down? Another lonely little trophy, If only I can walk a straight line, Id make it home free, And everybody in this bar thinks that they know me, And my story, Like poor me, I could count the days till you come back, Or I could follow them sunrays down to the train tracks, I can stumble drunk, over hope and love, Or I can just keep drinking till I sober up
[Pour me another, So I can forget you now, Pour me another, So I can come let you down, Pour me another, So I can remember how, True that I am to this addiction of you,] x2
Bottles, pints, shots, cans, Couches, and floors, and drunk best friends, Models, and whores, and tattooed hands, Cities, and secrets, and cats, and vans, Good times, laughter, bad decisions, Strippers, and actors, and average musicians, Mornings after, and walks of shame, This bartender knows me by my real name
"I bow with a thankful heart and become aware that all life is living within the principles of the universe."
This is #66 out of a series of 108 daily Buddhist affirmations that I am attempting to translate with my hands tied behind my back (well not really that, but I'm deliberately not seeking out translations on the internet, using only dictionary and grammar).
I would read this sixty-sixth affirmation as: "I bow with a thankful heart and become aware that all life is living within the principles of the universe."
Eleven years ago, this week, Michelle committed suicide. We were separated, but we hadn't really figured out if we were divorcing or not. It was a hard time, obviously. I'd spent nearly two years away, first in Alaska and then in L.A. where my dad was, while Michelle and Jeffrey were still living in Lansdale, Pennsylvania. Our last phone conversation included the words, "Are we getting divorced?" to which the other of us answered, "I don't know." She also uttered the phrase, "There's a better place for me than here." I kind of knew where her mind was. But what could I do?
This piano piece by David Lanz was never really one of my favorites, but Michelle was deeply sentimental about it. She once told me, eerily, as we sat cuddled on the sofa in better times, "I hope I die to this music." I could be misremembering, but I think this was, indeed, what she may have died to - it was in the CD player in the bedroom where she took her fatal collection of pills. This is hard information to dwell on.
For a person who doesn't believe in ghosts, I've accommodated Michelle's with a great deal of faithfulness and peculiar ritual behavior. Once I dreamed that she (her ghost) was stuck at the Incheon Airport, having come looking for me. One day shortly after that, I took the bus out there to show her where I was. And in the fall of 2009, when I had the chance to pass through Philly, I stopped by Quakertown, where she died, to see if her ghost was there.
Sometimes I feel as if she's looking over my shoulder. I don't feel she's angry. More just tagging along, curious to see what I'm doing with myself. Other times I feel as if she has found her "better place" and still others, that she's this seething knot of sadness and regret. I'm sure mostly these are all my own projections onto what was once her.
Picture: circa Christmas, 1994, visiting my father's house where he used to live in Temple City (next door to the house he grew up in, in fact). Jeffrey was, perhaps, bored, but Michelle was really happy during those times - we'd exchanged our "secret vows" the preceding month, when I'd returned from my 6 months in Chile.
“Standing up there, the faces looking at me, the things in my head coming out of my mouth, while my brain searched for the next best thing to follow what I was saying, and if I could sway them to my side by handling it right, then I had won the debate – once my feet got wet I was gone on debating. Whichever side of the selected subject was assigned to me, I’d track down and study everything I could find on it. I’d put myself in my opponent’s place and decide how I’d try to win if I had the other side; and then I’d figure out a way to knock down those points.” - Malcolm X, 1965
I found this quote while looking for quotes about debate. There's something both ingenuous and ingenious in the quote.
In English, "You and I are both fools." It was in the soundtrack of a drama called 궁 [gung = The Palace]. I didn't like the drama much, but I liked the song. So, this is the only Korean song I've ever tried to sing in a 노래방 (Karaoke room). It was, I have to say, a total disaster.
The lyrics.
난 바보였었죠 내가 바보였었죠 후회해도 늦었죠 알죠 돌이킬 순 없죠 그댈 볼 수 없어요 나도 알고 있어요 내가 정말 잘못했어요 정말 미안해요
그땐 얘기하지 못했죠 너무 어리석었죠 이제와서 이렇게 애태우며 난 용서를 빌어요
당신은 나는 바보입니다 자존심 때문에 미칠듯한 그리움에 망가지고 있죠 당신은 나는 바보입니다 아직 사랑하기에 하루 종일 펑펑 울고만 있죠 그대도 나도 모두 바보처럼
그러진 말아요 다시 생각해봐요 우리 어떻게 여기까지 힘들게 왔는데 다시 생각해봐요 후회 하실꺼예요 내가 정말 잘못했어요 정말 미안해요
그땐 얘기하지 못했죠 너무 어리석었죠 이제 와서 이렇게 애태우며 난 용서를 빌어요
당신은 나는 바보입니다 자존심 때문에 미칠듯한 그리움에 망가지고 있죠 당신은 나는 바보입니다 아직 사랑하기에 하루 종일 펑펑 울고만 있죠 그대도 나도 모두 바보처럼
그대 없이 난 한순간도 살 수 없어요 머릴 잘라도 술을 마셔도 눈물만 흐르죠
당신은 나는 바보입니다 자존심 때문에 미칠듯한 그리움에 망가지고 있죠 당신은 나는 바보입니다 아직 사랑하기에 하루 종일 펑펑 울고만있죠 그대도 나도 모두 바보처럼
True summer in Korea means rain. These broad fronts of humid, hot, overcast weather with lots of rain swarm up from the south and then just linger over the peninsula. It's as if the tropics come to visit for a few months each year. For someone who grew up on the Northern California coast, this is backwards in more than one way - rain is supposed to come from the northwest, and in winter, and be cold. But rain is rain is rain. I still like it.
Our current bout of it started two days ago. Yesterday's and today's satellite pictures are almost identical.
"I bow with a thankful heart and become aware that all life is achieved through communication and sympathy."
This is #65 out of a series of 108 daily Buddhist affirmations that I am attempting to translate with my hands tied behind my back (well not really that, but I'm deliberately not seeking out translations on the internet, using only dictionary and grammar).
I would read this sixty-fifth affirmation as: "I bow with a thankful heart and become aware that all life is achieved through communication and sympathy."
"Communication and sympathy" above is the subject of the verb achieve, while "all life" is a topic, and it's hard to put that together with the lack of an object. So I kind of messed around with the verb roles a little bit.
I remember buying this album on vinyl in 1982 when it was released, at a record store in Eureka during a weekend visiting my dad's house there. It was not the first record I bought, but for some reason I remember the day I bought with weird clarity. Why does music work that way, sometimes?
If you want something profound about the symbolism of the song, I will leave you with this obscure philosophical reference: it's about Orwell and the surveillance state (which I think was what inspired me to go ahead and buy the album despite the "soft rock" top-40 stigma surrounding it, which didn't necessarily impress me at age 17). It seems weirdly prescient from where we sit now. It makes me think of how Foucault deploys Bentham's panopticon concept as a metaphor.
The video, nevertheless, I concede is cheesy. You have to concede that the concept of the music video was only a few years old at this point.
I swear, it's utter coincidence. Otherwise, you'd think I was developing a minor obsession. Yesterday, I mentioned Ke$ha in this here blog thingy, in the context of pretentious marxist philosophers and her possibly-related war against pretension.
Meanwhile, I had set my mind to watch episode 20 of season 21 of the Simpsons. Why, specifically, that episode? Because I had heard that it's the episode in which Lisa Simpson joins a debate team, and that seemed relevant to my work on designing a debate curriculum for my work. My students love the Simpsons almost universally, and so the idea of showing a "Simpsons Debate" struck me as a fun way to approach the subject.
Lo, and behold, look what the episode's couch gag was: the Springfieldites reprising Ke$ha's "Tik Tok." With the added benefit of being less NSFW.
Well, that's a new problem, for this new Background Noise "feature" of mine: I couldn't find a youtube for the particular track I was listening to. So, being the resourceful type, I made one. I can't find the lyrics for this song online, either. I might try to transcribe it at some point, I think it's pretty interesting for Nuyorican Rap.
The pictures I added to the video are lame - I was in a hurry, and I just slapped in a few pics I found via the goog. The last picture is something I found that's not even in NYC, it's in Chile, but it seemed like a good picture to put on at the end.
To change the subject a little bit, but still on the topic of Nueva York, I was thinking some more about my entry the other day about "all the world's people in one city" - questions of density. Here's the fascinating thing. Paris was the densest city mentioned in that graphic I posted at that last entry.
But I thought to myself, surely there are places more dense than Paris. And of course, listening to Spagga & friend, this evening, I thought: Of course! Manhattan!
I ran the numbers. If all the people in the world lived in a city of Manhattan's density they would fit in an area almost exactly the same size as... get this... South Korea. Interesting, huh? Can you imagine this entire mountainous little republic covered in high rises? It's pretty easy to do - they've made a heckuva start on it already.
A boy who I will not name wrote the following "essay." Note that he's at the lowest level here at the hagwon - he's not an advanced English speaker, and this essay in fact was showing a lot of initiative and innovative language use relative to his normal level.
For my next shrek party I have a die an I'm are zombie. I eat a shrek delicious stomach. Good! Ghost appear on my 가스레인지 [gas range] and die an die and die an die and die and die an die an die an die an I like die I like die I want a die I want a die I want a suicide I want a suicide I'm sad. An bye-bye.
I realize 5th graders often have rather morbid senses of humor, but this seemed pretty intense. He smiled as he read it for me, if that's any consolation. I remember writing such morbid things at that age, not that I was necessarily developmentally on an particularly even keel, either. I normally didn't give such writings to my teachers though.
"I bow with a thankful heart and become aware that all life is connected as one."
This is #64 out of a series of 108 daily Buddhist affirmations that I am attempting to translate with my hands tied behind my back (well not really that, but I'm deliberately not seeking out translations on the internet, using only dictionary and grammar).
Apparently the number of 20-something female pop-stars are striking up intellectual "friendships" with elderly marxist philosophers is greater than one. I was surprised to have heard that the number was greater than zero, actually. First, Gaga gets with Zizek, and then Ke$ha gets with Fredric Jameson.
Both of these might be untrue, however - I later found a refutation of the Gaga-Zizek flirtation which I failed to bookmark.
I can't decide how I feel about this. I've always admired Jameson hugely, and his books are among the most important influences on my own (oddly continuing-to-be-non-existent) thesis on Cervantes. Do I respect him yet more because he's so hip and trendy, even now in his doddering late 70's? Or does this just seem too weird?
How do I feel about Ke$ha - I never really noticed her music before, but I don't per se dislike it, either. Is it possible she actually understands Jameson, and appreciates him... intellectually? Fascinating. I already suspected that she was not a total intellectual lightweight, based on some interview with her I remember scanning through, a while back. Anyone who exists in the current rap/hiphop/pop mileu but manages to cite Dylan and Banksy as influences can't be utterly empty-headed.
From her website: “I think people can stand to take themselves just a little less seriously. I’m fighting the war against pretension.” Does one fight against pretension by hooking up with pretentious philosophers? That's appealing. Then again, one could fight pretention by simply creating the rumor that one was hooking up with a pretentious philosopher, almost as effectively, right?
Something about the Vanity Fair article I linked to above reads like a hoax. Yet... one hopes it isn't.
Really, it makes me want to write a novel. Well... many things seem to make me want to write a novel, but this strikes me as a gold mine of pop-culture references and abstruse marxist philosophy, all stirred together with seedy scandal or tender romance (or both - as a side-note, wouldn't it be interesting, for example, to novelize the Weinergate scandal as a sincere or angsty romance?).
At the risk of imperiling my blog's essential G-ratedness, here's her 2009 video for "Tik Tok."
I'm contemplating the density question, vis-a-vis issues of per capita environmental impact. I ran across an interesting graphic the other day.
Here's what I starting thinking about, in seeing this. The "Paris" version, above, is the densest - so imagine the world's population living in that space. That would be one messed up ecosystem, there on the Mississippi delta. The impact would be, essentially, total. But think of this: the rest of the world would be empty of people. Maybe there would be some agriculture - this sort of graphic doesn't say how putting everyone in one city would see how their resource needs were taken care of, how they would be fed, etc. But let's imagine a best-case scenario, with all the people living in this giant megalopolis in the Mississippi delta, and then a bunch of sustainable automated farms and mines feeding it. Hmm... kind of science-fictiony. And I don't want to try too hard here. My only thought ... my main point... is that this mega-city's impact would be huge, but the rest of the planet would have much, much lower impact. That seems to lead to the ability to imagine the Earth much more sustainably carrying its current population. QED Density is a good idea.
Fear and panic in the air I want to be free From desolation and despair And I feel like everything I sow Is being swept away Well I refuse to let you go
I can't get it right Get it right Since I met you
Loneliness be over When will this loneliness be over
Life will flash before my eyes So scattered and lost I want to touch the other side And no one thinks they are to blame Why can't we see That when we bleed we bleed the same
I can't get it right Get it right Since I met you
Loneliness be over When will this loneliness be over Loneliness be over When will this loneliness be over
"I bow with a thankful heart and become converted to the [Buddha's] Priesthood."
This is #63 out of a series of 108 daily Buddhist affirmations that I am attempting to translate with my hands tied behind my back (well not really that, but I'm deliberately not seeking out translations on the internet, using only dictionary and grammar).
I would read this sixty-third affirmation as: "I bow with a thankful heart and become converted to the [Buddha's] Priesthood."
More and more, I think the "become converted to" should actually be translated as a simple "embrace." But whatever translation is used, it should be consistent in the affirmations where it's used from #61 onward.
Up to this point, I had - through the miracle of cut-and-paste - developed the habit of repeating all the previous affirmations. But it was getting out of hand - the posts get quite long, and probably mean absolutely nothing to most of my readers, except giving the blog a kind of cluttery feel. So I've repented that repetitiveness. Instead, I've created a new category "The 108" which I will use to allow those interested in viewing all these affirmations together, and I will only repeat the two most recent previous affirmations in each post. I will take the time to go back and edit out the repetitiveness in the previous posts, eventually.
This is undoubtedly the only song that is part of my mp3 rotation due to my having read the title over the shoulder of a stranger on their cell-phone screen while riding the subway (see relevant blog-entry from 2008). In point of fact, it's a really weird way to acquire a song. But it suits my postmodern affectations well, I confess, that I did so.
Don't get the weird idea I understand the Japanese. I can barely identify some of the vocabulary. And what few kanji I can identify below, I tend to pronounce in my head by their Korean hanja readings, not their Japanese ones, which I don' t know. But in any event, I've always had a weakness for JPop, especially associated with anime. So here's the lyrics - just for the sake of completeness, and if I ever decide to study Japanese again.
本当は空を飛べると知っていたから 羽ばたくときが怖くて風を忘れた
oblivious 何処へ行くの 遠くに見えるあの蜃気楼 いつか怯えながら 二人の未来を映して
よるべない心二つ寄り添う頃に 本当の悲しみがほら翼広げて
oblivious 夜の中で 真昼の影を夢見るように きっと堕ちて行こう 光へ
いつか 君と 二人 夜を 朝を 昼を 星を 幻想を 夏を 冬を 時を 風を 水を 土を 空を we go further in the destiny・・・
Everyone knows I have a weirdly immoderate love for reference books. I am the one who reads dictionaries and encyclopedias recreationally, and who compulsively visits wikipedia online the way normal people visit facebook.
On Saturday, I shelled out something over a 100,000 won (a hundred bucks) for a reference book. It's one I've fantasized owning for at least two years. The actual value I will derive from it is highly dubious - I'm not sufficiently advanced to get most of what it has to say. It's A Reference Grammar of Korean, a sort of exhaustive synchronic and diachronic study of the Korean language, by a trained linguist, and written in English, which makes it at least a little bit accessible.
It has one major drawback. It's such a huge drawback that I kept telling myself I shouldn't buy it. It's a drawback that has me seething with frustration every time I open it. The problem is that Mr Martin, the book's author, opted not to use the Korean writing system in his massive tome (over 1000 pages). Instead of hangeul, he uses our own charming Roman alphabet.
This has deep limitations. The most widely used "popular" Romanizations are unworkable for such an academic study as his, since they are not, strictly speaking, "reversible" - that is, there is not a one-for-one correspondence between their letters and the letters of hangeul. Reversibility is crucial in an academically reputable linguistic oeuvre of this caliber, because you have to be able to reconstruct what the heck he's talking about in any given example. So he opts for a modified version of the infamous Yale Romanization.
I despise the Yale Romanization, despite my deep sympathies for the issue of reversibility just mentioned. Mostly because it is nastily counter-intuitive to English speakers. The letters are just "wrong." Consider a common phrase like "In South Jeolla Province": 전라남도에서. The ROK government's Romanization, which I'm meticulously loyal to in this blog, would be [jeollanam-do-eseo]. The Yale is [cenlanam-to-eyse]. How can you come close to pronouncing that correctly, with a spelling like that? It's a bit like Pinyin, in this respect. If you have no idea what I'm ranting on about, don't worry about it.
One might ask, why did the author choose to do this? It seems almost disrespectful of the Korean language, at some level. But actually, as a linguist, I understand perfectly. You see, people like me - people trying to learn Korean - are not, in fact, his target audience. Nor, obviously, are any actual Korean speakers - actual Korean speakers can, of course, read the reference grammars written in Korean, which abound. No, Mr Martin's target audience is linguists. And linguists, despite being linguists, have a low toleration for being asked to learn new writing systems just in order to absorb a few charming points of abstract syntax for some given language. Personally, I find this... strange. It strikes me as lazy, a little bit - and disrespectful of whatever language is being looked at. At the least, it strikes me as vaguely unprofessional of them. But it's a true fact about linguists, I cannot deny.
I've decided to tolerate it, though. The book is too useful and downright fascinating. Maybe someday my Korean will be good enough that I can actually derive usefulness from a Korean grammar written in Korean. That would be very exciting. But until then, I guess I will put up with Martin's idiosyncratic Yale. And maybe, meanwhile, Mr Martin will make a future edition that puts the effort into putting hangeul in brackets, or something, alongside all his transcriptions. Putting the original spelling in Korean alongside that nifty reversible transliteration in that abhorrent Yale system (for all the lazy linguists out there)... well, that would be both highly professional and deeply respectful.
No me dijeron que pagara por lo que haces Simón vas a joder a los demás The more you get, the more you don't forget put them down y empieza un nuevo show Don't pay por lo roto y ve por lo otro que si se regresa, say your prayers, reza hablas mal traicionas a tu carnal, de eso vas kuleka but it comes back The people's choice now es el anti-support güey, it's gonna go down, si sigue that way trata a tu brother como a tu carnal, say "all we are sayin' is give peace a chance" ESTRIBILLO Man kills man -y se felicitan- Save your alma -que la necesitas- Man kills man -y se felicitan Karmara -todo lo que sube tiene de bajar- Vi a un maestre cargando su trinche no sabes man cuando entrega el estuche vi a otro maestre cargando su hoz De este planeta prefiero irme en paz Se hierve sabroso su pasado de laza alivianame ñor por pensar en venganza por todos los grillos que viva la tranza de la libertad solo queda esperanza The final day el día del botón rojo Karmara man a mi nadie me lo dijo Vamos mal pasándola por culpa de otros el cambio verdadero se encuentra en nosotros ESTRIBILLO
"I bow with a thankful heart and become converted to the Buddha's Dharma."
This is #62 out of a series of 108 daily Buddhist affirmations that I am attempting to translate with my hands tied behind my back (well not really that, but I'm deliberately not seeking out translations on the internet, using only dictionary and grammar).
This song always makes me think of long walks (really long walks) through the Arcata Bottoms (out along Lanphere Road, where my step-father's house was), in the rain, in about 1979.
"Cat Stevens - Miles From Nowhere"
Miles from nowhere I guess Ill take my time Oh yeah, to reach there
Look up at the mountain I have to climb Oh yeah, to reach there.
Lord my body has been a good friend But I wont need it when I reach the end
Miles from nowhere Guess Ill take my time Oh yeah, to reach there
I creep through the valleys And I grope through the woods cause I know when I find it my honey Its gonna make me feel good
I love everything So dont it make you feel sad cause Ill drink to you, my baby Ill think to that, Ill think to that.
Miles from nowhere Not a soul in sight Oh yeah, but its alright
I have my freedom I can make my own rules Oh yeah, the ones that I choose
Lord my body has been a good friend But I wont need it when I reach the end
Miles from nowhere Guess Ill take my time Oh yeah, to reach there.
"This is the lion. The lion is under the elephant. Lion hungry. 맛있당!"
Thus went the narrative of my first-grade student Jae-hyeon, to accompany the illustration he drew on the blackboard. Apparently, the elephant sat on the lion. The lion, feeling vengeful, ate the elephant, and declared "맛있당!" [Yummy!]. Note the extremely large exclamation point. You can kind of see what happened, if you study the drawing.
I didn't discover the Afghan Whigs until fairly recently. But they are a true 90s band. I feel like their sound is the halfway point between the Psychedelic Furs and Nirvana. That's pretty impressionistic. I'm really stuck on this track, at the moment.
I'm trying for a new "feature" on this here blog thingy. I've tried things like it before. I could grandiosely call it: The Soundtrack to the Film Version of My Autobiography. TSttFVoMA? Maybe let's just call it: Background Noise.
I went out to do my little jog around the lake. I like doing it at night when I get home, after work - jogging in the dark suits my personality quite well - it's less hot at night, and I don't feel like people are watching me. Ilsan's Lake Park is well lit and has lots of paths and trails.
I took this really cool picture of the amazing, full, bright, shiny moon hanging and reflecting over the Lake, with part of the Ilsan skyline. My little digital camera did pretty well, I think.
"I bow with a thankful heart and become converted to the Buddha."
This is #61 out of a series of 108 daily Buddhist affirmations that I am attempting to translate with my hands tied behind my back (well not really that, but I'm deliberately not seeking out translations on the internet, using only dictionary and grammar).
I would read this sixty-first affirmation as: "I bow with a thankful heart and become converted to the Buddha."
I was dreading #61 because the syntactic pattern changes completely, but it wasn't too bad. I'm unsure whether the "-게되어" is a causative, a passive, or some other type of structure, so I'm not sure about the "become converted" part - it could be a much simpler "embrace."
His (Bloom's) logical conclusion, having weighed the matter and allowing for possible error?
That it was not a heaventree, not a heavengrot, not a heavenbeast, not a heavenman. That it was a Utopia, there being no known method from the known to the unknown: an infinity renderable equally finite by the suppositious apposition of one or more bodies equally of the same and of different magnitudes: a mobility of illusory forms immobilised in space, remobilised in air: a past which possibly had ceased to exist as a present before its probable spectators had entered actual present existence.
A Utopia. See? And Joyce's Ulysses ends: "...and yes I said yes I will Yes."
In keeping with my apparent theme for the week: random languages that I studied long in the past. Above - the opening of the most interesting of the four Gospels (in my opinion), John. As found in my mother's old Greek New Testament, which I acquired in January when visiting her, when she showed me a box of books she was getting rid of.
My ability to read Greek is very poor (maybe slightly better than my ability to read, say, Welsh - see previous blog post - mostly due to the more accessible plethora of cognates). But the translation of this is nevertheless quite easy because it's such a commonly known phrase: "In the beginning was the word..." - see? You can complete it yourself.
Shall I attempt to read this book? Probably not. But Greek (and especially ἡ κοινὴ διάλεκτος, "the common dialect" [koine] such as found in the New Testament) is pretty high on the list of languages that interest me. The Bible makes a great text to revisit when learning a language, because it is so meticulously translated into each language. I saw a trilingual edition in a bookstore a while back: Greek, English, Korean. I should have bought it. Then I could mess with koine guiltlessly, having the Korean staring me en face.
I've been in a weird state of mind, lately. I keep revisiting random poetry and random languages I studied in times long past. I guess I'm trying to live up to the "unrepentant language-geek" part of my blog's header (see above).
So... I was mucking around at wikisource.org (a place where public domain texts can often be found). I began browsing Medieval Welsh poetry. I took a course on Medieval Welsh in 1988. I loved it - despite (or because of) it being one of the most intense academic undertakings I've ever tried. I remember struggling to translate bardic love poetry, as well as, most memorably, the legend of Pwyll and Rhiannon from the Red Book of Hergest. I remember Pwyll blindly chasing Rhiannon down into Annwn (the Otherworld) vividly.
When I found a four-line poem by Dafydd ap Gwilym, I decided to "figure it out." I won't go so far as to say I "translated" it - I got the gist of it by using google translate, but also had to surf to some Old Welsh dictionaries, because google translate is based on the modern Welsh language, and the program doesn't know what to do with the obsolete vocabulary and grammatical forms of 15th century Welsh. I have no idea how accurate my little translation might be - I was unable to find any "official" translation online.
Goddaith a roir mewn eithin,
Gwanwyn cras, mewn gwynnon crin,
Anodd fydd ei ddiffoddi
Ac un dyn a’i hennyn hi.
There's a wildfire among the gorse, Parched by Spring, withered kindling, It will be difficult to put out and [to think] a lone man caused it.
[Picture at right: Welsh Summer Landscape Painting]
I actually find the tone of the poem strikingly "modern" in its sensibility - but perhaps that's a reader's projection.
The negative aspect of this "mucking about" with other languages: I'm still trying to reignite my former passion for learning Korean. My heart hasn't been in it. I'm plateaued.
A parting thought:
"I did not learn any Welsh till I was an undergraduate, and found in it an abiding linguistic-aesthetic satisfaction." - J.R.R. Tolkien said this. But it's precisely true for me, too - I could have said exactly the same. But I didn't quite end up so creatively productive as Mr Tolkien.
"I bow in repentance of any insufficiency [in showing] mercy toward guilty people."
This is #60 out of a series of 108 daily Buddhist affirmations that I am attempting to translate with my hands tied behind my back (well not really that, but I'm deliberately not seeking out translations on the internet, using only dictionary and grammar).
Horas de pesadumbre y de tristeza paso en mi soledad. Pero Cervantes es buen amigo. Endulza mis instantes ásperos, y reposa mi cabeza. Él es la vida y la naturaleza, regala un yelmo de oros y diamantes a mis sueños errantes. Es para mí: suspira, ríe y reza. Cristiano y amoroso y caballero parla como un arroyo cristalino. ¡Así le admiro y quiero, viendo cómo el destino hace que regocije al mundo entero la tristeza inmortal de ser divino!
- Rubén Darío
No me acompaña el genio Cervantes de tal modo como a Darío, precisamente. Pero sí me acompaña - siempre está presente en la mente. Me brinda un cierta perspectiva sobre el mundo que me rodea: un distanciamiento medio-posmoderno, digamos... o barroco. Es igual.
Me ha introducido una melancolía este fin de semana pasado. Pasará, seguro. Mientras tanto... viendo dramas coreanas, y leyendo poesías al azar.
