This Week: November 6-12

Alright. I’m a shit blogger. But as I mentioned in the last post, I am a really well-informed shit blogger these days, and while I’m trawling through countless articles to look for material for work, I’m constantly saving articles, too, that I have a personal interest in and mean to come back to at some point. That point is usually Sunday, when I should be getting work done to make the week run more smoothly. So I thought, while I’m at it, at least I can make myself useful (is that what this is?) and do a kind of round-up on Fridays/Saturdays in the weird witching hours between finishing one week’s work and starting the next week’s.

And what a week it has been my friends. I’m going to try to bring some order to the chaos, but this will probably be an evolving format for a while (or this will be the only time this kind of post ever happens — life is full of mystery).

In Korea

• Trump came, blah blah blah. Let’s not talk about that. It’s over now, and there were no major international incidents, so let’s just move on.
• Now, who could use a nice, stiff drink? The Cheongdam Cocktail Festival started last Thursday and will be going on until the 22nd. You can get up to 60% discounts on drinks and bar food at places like Mixology, Lupin and Alice. These are some of the best cocktails Korea has to offer, but they are pricey, so it’s a good chance to try some of these places out at a fraction of the normal price.
• Also related, if you’re feeling like you’re living in a somewhat Lynchian world of late, there’s a film festival for that. Seoul Art Cinema will be showing David Lynch’s films from November 15 to November 26.
• The Joongang Ilbo has published an interesting profile of literary critic and writer Hwang Hyun-san. He explains that growing up on a remote island meant that he learned a dialectical Korean that influenced his interest in words and language.
• And of course, the new Michelin Seoul guide is out. There’s a lot of drama going on with this guide, but it’s not as unique to Korea as some people seem to think. Chefs have been giving back their stars for a while now, for a variety of reasons, and of course the guide is tied up in politics and nepotism all over the world. Why else would it have taken them this long to even get to Korea?
• And finally, the Daeonsil Greenhouse has reopened at Changgyeonggung Palace. I didn’t know about the greenhouse until about a year ago, but it’s been closed for renovation for about 15 months. I’ll definitely be stopping in soon to check it out. One of my main goals in life is to be set up enough to have a greenhouse, and probably also someone to take care of the plants in said greenhouse, because despite my sharecropper roots, I kill most things left in my care (that don’t have four legs…. my zoo of pets are fine, don’t worry).

In the World

• Louis CK, why? I have actually been waiting for this to come out, because female comedians have been hinting around about this for months, if not years. But still, why? Also, gross.
• Korean-American writer Seo-young Chu came out with a heartbreaking and beautiful piece of writing in Entropy that details the fragmented way women experience sexual assault, rape and the sexual abusive of power. Technically, that was last week, but it’s worth including, and it’s worth reading.
• This piece in the New York Times Magazine about translation and poetry, and how we all live with translation, regardless of how many languages we speak, is also a little bit old, but I keep going back and re-reading it. Carina del Valle Schoske asks, “But who can afford to remain untranslated?” It has such a strong connection to how I feel about the relationship between poetry, translation, life and communicating with others.
• If you’re not really feeling Lynch, or going out in this recent cold snap, you could always stay in and watch this list of old Hollywood dramas with strong female leads compiled by the New York Times instead.
• And if you want to feel even worse about the person you were at 18 than reading your own old journals makes you feel, good news! Flannery O’Connor’s college journal has been published. This article from The Atlantic covers a bit about the journal and a lot about what it means for women to consider the act of writing, so naturally, I saved it.
• And finally, if you’re a nerd for outdated gossip and historical bad girls like I am, there’s a profile of “ancient it-girl” Phryne up on the BBC website. She was an ancient Greek courtesan and female wit whose cover name literally translates to “toad”. Ten expert-blogger-stalking bonus points to anyone who realizes why that part made me laugh out loud.

So there’s the world according to me for this week. Eventually I will quell the rising storm of work assignments and bake something or go somewhere. Until then.