그 꽃 - 고은

내려갈 때

보았네

올라갈 때

보지 못한

그꽃

profundity in simplicity

beauty in defeat

Neurosis

I've hit that neurotic state of word-smithing in which I belabor over every word and punctuation. After my good friend indulged me enough to talk about one single sentence for over an hour, during which my sanity was completely lost, our conversation looked like this:

[after he sends me a suggestion for the said sentence]

me: i'm not feeling it

a lot of it having to do with the definite article

um... yeah, we're now talking about "the" in a sentence

J: haha, well it's your "the"

that was in your original sentence

i don't really know what your gripe is there

feels pretty neutral to me

me: my the was preceded by a preposition

grammatically, it makes a lot of difference

i am hitting a neurotic state, I'm sorry

J: but does it change the meaning

you're already comfortable using sentence fragments here, so i assume grammaticality is not the issue

me: the fragments are direct quotes that give imediacy to the moment

J: i'm going to leave this to you

i think you should sleep on it

me: nooooooooo

Jerome: at this point i do think you're getting hung up

any of these variations we've tried barely change how the message comes off

no one is going to notice the level of subtlety you're getting at

me: i know

but you know that i am neurotic with words torture myself with the placement of punctuation

Jerome: yeah but it's kinda like death by analysis

me: such is my fate!

i don't know. i'm losing my mind. give me a pithy advice and go to bed

Jerome: sometimes you just need to take off the thinking cap and move forward

me: and or to?

Jerome: because chances are, you've already done good thinking, and it'll turn out fine

i think both are valid

me: manifestly false. quick! go before i argue that point to ad nauseum

Tout your reading

something I wrote a while back, but never bothered to post.

A response to the internet meme ""the BBC expects that the average reader has only read 6. Mark how many you've read."


Creating a cannon of literature always brings familiar criticisms. The most trite of the bunch is the indignant, "There's _____, but no______‽" While there are meaningful commentaries to be had regarding the selection process (for example, within the scheme of the list, are the non-English writers included fair representatives of their cultures or mere tokens to deflect from the Anglo-American predominance?), the majority of these comments tend to be thinly veiled boasts of one's own literacy.

A follow-up criticism to lists of this sort is the irrelevant, "why Bother?" Yes, these lists are arbitrary and flawed, but that's beside the point. People love lists, and from a publisher's point of view, they're goldmines-- especially when the entries are questionable, as they allure new readers, even if they only initially come to express their horror that we value Memoirs of a Geisha more than One Hundred Years of Solitude.

But what I found most disconcerting about this list was the note at the top, "the BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100." Not only is six is an incredibly dismal number, but six is an excessively meager digit given that the majority of the books listed are either school readings or or children's books or have been best sellers within the last decade. Perhaps I'm taking my education for granted, but I really would think that if one weren't completely deprived of a childhood and has read at least one school book or a best seller a year, the count would easily surpass 6 by the time one graduates from college, if not high school.

So I was curious as to how the BBC got the number six. I looked and I looked, and I couldn't find it. In fact, I couldn't find any evidence that the BBC ever wrote this list. While there was a similar list by the BBC, there were some key differences in selection and ordering. As it turns out, the list that had been going around as the BBC List was actually a poll of readers' favorites compiled by the Guardian for World Book Day in 2007. And, of course, there is no mention of the number six. In fact, the Guardian had asked that readers submit ten books they "could not live without," meaning that everyone who participated in making this compilation has read more than six.

Sure, there is a possibility that someone accidentally confused the Guardian for the BBC and somehow thought that the number six was involved. But call me a cynic, but this the creator of this meme seems to be exploiting our desires to appear well-read. As I said before, reading six books from the list is not at all a daunting task. What better way for an internet meme to elicit dispersal than to allow someone to preen how he or she has exceed the BBC's expectations of an average reader? And I think this is where the switch from the Guardian to the BBC came about; believing that the BBC was perceived to have more name recognition than the Guardian, the maker of the meme might have consciously lied about the origin of the list in an effort to make it appear even more authoritative.

But perhaps saddest of all is the fact how seriously some have taken this meme. There are many blog posts and articles (some of them by seasoned columnists) that bemoan the number six and go into long diatribes against today's "illiterate" society. The lesson to take away? Always fact check, especially when it's a matter of simply googling "100 Books BBC."

++Unrelated notes and confessions++

-I'm surprised that Harper Lee made it so far up on a poll of what I assumed to be mostly British readers. While To Kill a Mockingbird is the most accessible and possibly most known from the Southern Gothic genre, I could have not expected that rural Alabama would have struck such a chord with non-American readers, which I readily admit is probably a misconception on my part. After all, who could hate Atticus Finch?
-47

Voyage in the Dark

"It was one of those days when you can see the ghosts of all the other lovely days. You drink a bit and watch the ghosts of all the lovely days that have ever been from behind a glass." Voyage in the Dark, Jean Rhys.

I'll tell you where I like it on

As much as I am for breast cancer awareness and the positive assertion of female sexuality, the "I like it on the ..." campaign is downright fucked up. Not only is the connection from purse to breast cancer asininely circumlocutory at best, it also, subconsciously or not, reenforces the idea that breasts and women are sexual entities only, an idea especially damning when so many women choose to get mastectomies in order to save their lives in their battle against this cancer.

Of course everyone has the right to be coquettish as he/she desires on his/her personal Facebook page, but, as the saying goes, don't piss on me and tell me it's raining. If you really want to raise breast cancer awareness, use your big fuckin' juicy brains and send everyone links to important websites such as http://www.breastcancer.org, www.komen.org, and http://www.nbcam.org/ or some hard sobering-- not titillating-- facts such as "According to the American Cancer Society (ACS), an estimated 192,370 new cases of invasive breast cancer are expected to be diagnosed among women in the United States this year."

"You'll find a better man, I promise."

A conversation I just had with the customer service person at Expedia. My thoughts are in italics.


me: Hi. I'd like to cancel my upcoming flight from Los Angeles to Philadelphia.
Expedia Lady: Sure, Su-Chong. I can do that for you. If you don't mind, could you tell us the reason for your cancellation?
me: I just broke up with my boyfriend so I won't be needing to go see him. Ha! If I say that, they won't be able to challenge or question me!
Expedia Lady: Oh my goodness, So-Ching, I'm so sorry to hear that.
me: Oh, no. Please don't worry yourself over it.
Expedia Lady: Unless it was a happy break up?
me: .... Um... It was mutual.
Expedia Lady: Well, I'm still sorry to hear that, Su-Jung. Can I have your itinerary number? And I'm certain that he wasn't good enough for you and that you'll find someone better soon.
me: ... This is getting awkward... The number is 888888888888.
Expedia Lady: But really, Su-Chun, don't beat yourself up for it.
me: I'm not?
Expedia lady: You're going to find better men soon, I promise. Alright, it's only going to take a moment for the cancellation. Can I do anything else for you, So-Chun?
me: No thank you. I think I'll be fine for tonight.
Expedia lady: It's canceled. And remember, you're going to find a better man. Have a good night!




Rainy night, dyspeptic state, and unsolicited love advice from customer service person post-break up-- my life is apparently a bad romantic comedy movie.

All apologies, Part II

Again, apologies for the lack of updates. I've come back to Philadelphia and am trying my best to settle in, be diligent in my languages, and get a head start on the application process. Of course, being myself, I'm not doing any of those, instead berating myself with self-doubt and self-loathing.

A happier and more upbeat update soon, I promise.

goodbye, hello

So long California



Hello (once again) Philadelphia



(Yeah, it's not fair to compare a lovely sunset from the Ritz Carlton in Laguna Naguel to West Philadelphia during Snowmagedon, but it's my blog, damnit!)

All apologies

Apologies for the lack of updates. I went on vacation and am now trying to desperately make up for all the Greek and Latin I haven't done during the summer. But for now, here's my favorite photo from a weekend in La Jolla.


(The rest of my family, unaware of the lurking Nancy Rubins work)

Till after my placement exam, χαίρετε φίλοι!

Lark(in) the trees

The Trees by Philip Larkin 

The trees are coming into leaf 
Like something almost being said; 
The recent buds relax and spread, 
Their greenness is a kind of grief. 

Is it that they are born again 
And we grow old? No, they die too, 
Their yearly trick of looking new 
Is written down in rings of grain. 

Yet still the unresting castles thresh 
In fullgrown thickness every May. 
Last year is dead, they seem to say, 
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.


While reading Larkin last night, I found out that you can hear
his reading of two poems ("The Trees" and "The Whitsun
Weddings") here. His voice is soft, solemn, and a bit wearied,
but breathes into his poems a stirring. The site is wonderful
and features many other poets (going as far back to Tennyson!),
but, of all the poets I heard last night and today, I still
find Larkin to be the most resonant.

Alma Mater

Here I am, talking to a college friend into the early hours. Spurred by nostalgia, I found myself shifting through the internet for all things Columbia. Somehow or another (and it all began with trying to remember if Fayerweather was indeed spelled with a Y or not), I found Tony Kushner's 2004 Class Day speech. The hilarious speech (complete with ample jabs at Columbia's hate for and inferiority complex about Princeton) can be found in its entirety here, but here is a really splendid excerpt.

"This is the Columbia dialectic, the New York City dialectic, all this spectacular symmetry, all this Euclidean geometry, all this rational griddage is a lattice entwined with floribund, uncontrolled and uncontrollable vines, shoots, roots, fruits, leaves, bees, busily cross-pollinating. This box, this machine, this is a crystal incubatory whence comes the fluid, the protean, the revolutionary, the non-mechanical, the non-commodified, the non-fetishized, the human. The air this morning is electric. You have fed, you have sated, you’re ready; and every step you take from this point on counts. This is your Code Orange: Life and its terrors, terrible and splendid, awaits. I know I speak for Jon, Warren and Justice Ruth — seek the truth; when you find it, speak the truth; interrogate mercilessly the truth you’ve found; and act, act, act. The world is hungry for you, the world has waited for you, the world has a place for you. Take it. Mazel tov. Change the world."

Fever Ray covering Peter Gabriel, YES YES YES

If you and I talked about music anytime during the past year, I probably have gushed to you already about how much I love the Swedish musician Fever Ray. She's recently confirmed that her next song would be a cover of Peter Gabriel's "Mercy Street" and the vinyl for the track is now available for pre-order on her website.

It is fuckin' amazing. It's hauntingly beautiful and does Gabriel immense justice.

Andersson, the face behind Fever Ray and one half of the electronic duo the Knife, says of the track herself, "We made it more intense and faster to fit our eccentric pecussionists and energetic live musicians. It is a monotone track but we worked with the dynamics trying to make it sparkle. I listened to it a lot when I was around 15, and it still moves me. It made me start reading Anne Sexton too." (lifted from NME)

Kosinskian Landscape?

I read Jerzy Kosinski's The Painted Bird last week and have been thinking about it and its surrounding controversies since. The allegation that either Kosinski or the publishers consciously exploited the Holocaust by publicizing the book as being an autobiographical work seemed strange to me because I had interpreted the novel's primitive landscape as a liminal space where the boundaries between historical realities and Bosch-like dreamscapes composed of demons from folklore, nightmares, and and children's imagination have dissolved.



While I've been thinking about this now and then for the past week, my friend sent me today a link to a selection of color photographs from early 20th century Russia. While the time and geography is a bit off, I couldn't help but look at these and imagine Kosinski's unnamed protagonist passing through many of these places. My rambling thoughts on Kosinski aside, these photos are really something.

Korean exhibitions at the Fowler

I was at the Fowler Museum in UCLA last Sunday for the opening of the Contemporary Korean Ceramics exhibition. Despite being distracted by the festivities and the bustle of the exhibition's inauguration, I nevertheless left very much disappointed. Given the lofty ambition to represent the contemporary face of Korean ceramics, the one lone gallery room filled with few select pieces from only five artists seemed irretrievably insufficient.

Because the exhibition gave only the skimpiest history of Korean ceramics, the context needed to understand the relationship between traditional forms and modern visual rhetoric was missing. While I really liked a several of the works individually, I felt the exhibition as a whole was incoherent. I could not but feel that the motive behind the exhibition was a desire to display Korean art, rather than a genuine in the dialogs and meditation on contemporary Korean ceramics.

I did, however, very much enjoy the smaller exhibition of Korean funerary figures also currently being exhibited by the Fowler Museum. Thee festively painted wooden funerary figures, or kkoktu, are fascinating relics of the rural folklore and superstitions. And since I generally tend to associate Joseon Korea with Neo-Confucian sterility, I was pleasantly surprised to see the gay colors, funny expressions, and dizzying creativity on these figurines. I also thought it was really interesting how the figure of the guard changed with time; while the 19th century ones showed Joseon military men with spears, the 20th century ones show mustached police officers.

While the two exhibits are not worth going out of the way for, it doesn't seem like a bad way to pass the time if you're in the neighborhood. Plus, the UCLA campus is gorgeous.

(Picture: Installation of 111 bowls by Lee Young-Jae, by far my favorite piece in the exhibition)

Weekend in numbers

[music: Yankee Fox Trot Hotel - Wilco]
[reads: The Painted Bird - Jerzy Kosinski]


1 Matsui homerun*
1 out of town friend
7 attempts to finish Helvetica
1 bottle of Riesling, 1 bottle of Moscato
6 chapters of Kosinski's The Painted Bird
1 pending cat adoption!**

*Went to Game 2 of the Angels Blue Jays series with the Blue Jay fan in my life. Given the good seats and the multiple homeruns, it was easily the most entertaining baseball game I've attended. However, I am somewhat racked with guilt that this was my younger brother's first baseball game and it was not a Dodgers game.

**A 4 month old gray tabby male who is stunning!

first post

I will write a blog, goddamnit.