And you were my modulation, so that's what you'll always be. We took each other higher, we set each other free

"As long as any sphere of mental life advances continuously and without any inner break, those who work in this sphere will always pose detailed questions on what we may call problems of technique, whose solution is not a purpose in itself but whose value stems from the part they play in the larger framework which alone is important."
- Ken Wilbur


I have been having a jolly good time as of late. Last weekend, I hopped on a bus at midnight and headed over to Busan to meet a friend. I spent the day in Busan wandering around Haeundae, and then took KTX (the bullet train) up to Seoul and crashed out early. On Sunday, I hit up the museum and had a really good meal in "French Town."
It was a good weekend, but it was a lot of traveling.

Work has been going well. The kids are divided in their fondness for me. Some find me hard to understand, therefore they get bored easily, but the kids who understand my "lectures" are very engaged and often are extremely willing to engage in dialogues depending of course on the topic at hand. I have been talking a lot about the idea of freedom.
Today we had a rather lengthy discussion on the definition of the Republic of Korea. It was very heartening to see their faces light up when they understood that the Republic of Korea is an idea, not just a location or place where the culture exists, but a political idea.

I have been trying to learn how to read and write Hangeul (Korean). It's proving to be rather easy, but I still struggle to remember what some characters represent. It's simply a matter of committing them to memory, but I have been preoccupied with many distractions. Mostly planning trips and trying to figure out a budget that will allow me to save money, and still have a fun life here.

This week the Lantern Festival began here in Jinju. During one of the Japanese invasions of Korea, the Koreans suffered quite a few casualties, and the families lit lanterns and set them on the river to show solidarity and hope. In remembrance of the event, there is a wonderful festival held here for i don't know, twelve days or so.
There are a number of light sculptures made by Korean artists and students. They are mostly powered with nuclear power but that energy is supplemented with wind power and some solar power. They are slowly working towards creating an energy independent society, although a large feature of that movement includes nuclear power. Korea also heavily invests in hydroelectric power and is slowly beginning to embrace wind and solar as energy resources.

I find am continuing to discover and expand on what i already feel.
I am living through a very generous period.

We get this crazy combination of everything and nothing right, but we are way way way way way way way way way tight

A bud sprouts
a leaf unfurls
a fruit is born
and then, when the time arrives,
briskly throwing it all away,
its naked body under the winter sky,
the stately standing tree.
- Beop Jeong

I travel roads
that are well worn
and unfamiliar.

The landscape passes by
in flashes of color and shape
circles of light
mountains of blue
oceans of green.

Moments surge through into decades
and i find myself older
my body taut and my hands skillful.
my heart beating and my synapses firing.

Emotional acuity and spiritual breadth
remain ever evolving
contributions
to the totality
that is
this fragile
human
experience.

I feel
so much
when i see your face
when i touch your skin.

When i find my arms
wrapped around your body
in what can only be called
a loving embrace
of enduring affection.

But I ain't goin', you hear me sayin'! If you ain't goin', with you I'm stayin'

"The weight of the world
is love.
Under the burden
of solitude,
under the burden
of dissatisfaction

the weight,
the weight we carry
is love."
- Allen Ginsberg

I am perpetually in awe
of the subtly
that envelops
the process we call
assimilation.

The heart grasps
so much,
so much more than the mind will acknowledge.

Where are we going?
What do we hope to express when we create?

The "free market"
is an idea that makes food cheaper,
resources
cheaper,
clothing and tools and toys
cheaper.
The "free market"
lowers prices and raises efficiency.

But the "free market"
isn't stopping wars.
The "free market"
isn't opening up boarders
or bringing people together.
We suffer
the proverbial
slings and arrows,
without flinching
but this neither makes us strong
nor stable.

we must contemplate
new modes
of transference.

We must embrace aspects
of cultural identity
while being able to let go
to let ourselves
be transformed
into a new expression
of modernity.

Bringing new ideas
into the room
- to the table
without drowning
in a sea of homogeneous muck.

Who do we want to be?
Not as people
but as a People.
As a species?

How do we want our
children to remember us?
How do we want to live with
our planetary compatriots?

We define
ethical boundaries,
they are not imposed.
We decide
what is right and what is wrong,
and more often than not,
moral absolutes
are not binary
but are
awash in a sea of gray.

Bend down low, let me tell you what I know

"A poem can't be written by an act of will. When the rest of us are trying our hardest to be present, a real poet goes absent. We can watch him in the moment of creation, there he sits with the pen in his hand, not moving. When it moves we've missed it. Where did he go in that moment? The meaning of art lies in the answer to that question. To discover it, to understand it, to know the difference between it happening and not happening, this is my whole purpose in life, and it is not a contemptible calling in our country where our liberties cannot be discussed because we have none, and science or politics can't be discussed for the same reason. A critic does double duty here. If something true can be understood about art, something will be understood about liberty, too, and science and politics and history - because everything is the universe is unfolding together with a purpose of which mine is a part."
- Tom Stoppard

I often find myself gazing ahead. At things to come. Settling into this moment seems too easy, yet daunts me with it's complexity.

There are tangible moments of perceived clarity, but they are usually compounded with wondrous oceans of doubt and self reservation. It seems too simple to be real.

The days have been momentous, yet soporific. The rains come and go, the temperature fluctuates, and i wonder if the landscape ever aches for respite.

The end of our days seems beckon and yet we remain, in motion, spinning in circles, accomplishing who knows what.

The small moments of trust and acceptance and love swirl majestically blinding our senses as we revel inside the memories of times long absent from this part of the day.

And still, we look towards the horizon and see scalding light. We run into the very depths of our psyches to stare, bravely at where we are going, and in that moment, we lose connection with the present.

Our only obligation is to be.

Exclusive you, elusive you, will any person ever get the juice of you

"The kind of people we truly must meet
are people whom we long for.

Once in a while, we must meet those who,
whether at our sides, or separated from us,
cause a wave of affection to undulate within."
-Beop Jeong

I spent the weekend in Seoul. A friend of mine from Hum met me up there and we stayed with a buddy who is studying Korean at one of the universities.

Our first night we saw a Korean production of Sondheim's Company.
Here is a brief review.

The theatre was very intimate, maybe 900 seats. The set was a large square that was coming out toward the audience perpendicularly. The floor was, I presume plexiglass that allowed light to be used in some very creative ways. There were also two sections of glass wall that were used in various positions during the night. Two leather covered, padded benches were also used in this manner.
The back wall of the theatre was very evocative of a city skyline. As this play takes place in New York, it was highly ingenious.
Throughout the performance the two wall pieces and the benches were slid on the floor seamlessly. The cast remained onstage the entire evening, sitting along the sides of the mainstage on appeared to black, leather covered cubes. I particularly enjoyed this approach as Sondheim has stated that he feels the entire show is happening in the lead character's (Robert's) mind.
There was a piano far downstage right. It was used in three scenes, but it seemed as though the music was canned (meaning there wasn't a live orchestra). It could have been that there were live musicians and that the sound was just too heavily distorted through the sound system.

The production was in Korean, so I am lucky that I had a very intimate knowledge of the show. My friend from Humboldt, has seen the show but was less familiar with the material. I think we both felt rather lost in terms of the dialogue. but found the staging entertaining enough to make the evening enjoyable.
It was interesting that they interpolated a few english words in the music and the dialogue.

The actor's tended to play the show with very large grins on their faces. It was like, "I'm in a Broadway Show! Look at me!" Rather than a serious exploration of people in pain and crippled by fear. It is a story about dysfunctional relationships and they played it like they were cast in a corny sitcom.

Sondheim has said that Company is about one person's journey into adulthood. A person coming to terms with the idea that suppressing emotional development leads us into serious crises across the board.
The Korean production didn't begin to approach that level of depth.

We also spent some time wandering around the city. The more I spend time in Seoul, the more I begin to think about living in a larger sized city when I return to the States.

I have been thinking a lot about grad school. What type of school i'd like to attend, what type of location i'd like to live in. It's been an interesting exercise in self reflection. Fun. Let me tell you.

Close the shutters, draw the shades; filter out the everglades, listening to glistening sun

"I remember days.
Or at least I try.
But as years go by
they're a sort of haze.
And the bluest ink
isn't really sky.
And at times I think
I would gladly die
for a day of sky"
- Stephen Sondheim

These are pieces that my students drew. They are representations of a story that we read from their texts. It's about a cricket from the country that has been transplanted into the city. There he meets an immigrant family, a mouse and a cat. Together they help him to decide that choosing an unknown path may be a better choice than going backwards.

I spent the weekend visiting a friend from school in Busan. It was a rather strange experience. There are a ton of foreigners in Busan teaching english. I met a couple of really good people, and was exposed to a lot of really crazy people. I think that i got some very sage advice from a writer friend of my old school chum. She echoed some wisdom i received when i first arrived in korea. I think that it is going to serve me well, as i have now been out a little bit and i have seen what the foreign community has to offer. Well, what i can see in a month. hehe.

I didn't end up making it to seoul last weekend, so i'm meeting some friends up there next weekend. this coming friday is Korea's Independence Day. So i have the day off. which is nice. i had last thursday and friday off, and now another four day week. ah this schedule is tough, let me tell you.

The fountains around jinju have been running and they look amazing at night. if i remember to grab my camera, i'll get some shots.

:)

Can I earn your trust, your love and affection? Just one step at a time in the right direction. Gonna aim for the sky, keep my feet on the ground

- Jonathan Larsen, Directed by Chris Columbus

ah family.
This is a clip from Chris Columbus' film of Jonathan Larsen's Rent. I included this scene not because of the performance of the song, but because of the expression of family that is depicted. The action is followed closely by the supporting members of this scene and to me, it is a wonderful realization of family at it's best. They're apart of everything that happens, and yet, are not necessarily part of the action.

Things are going well. I have to go to immigration today. The nearest office is in Masan. So i will be heading there after class with my boss.
On thursday i will be heading to Busan where a dear friend from Humboldt has been working since January. It sounds like she's ready to leave Korea. Hehe.

I have the Thursday and Friday off so I will be heading to Seoul to see a Korean production of the musical Company by Stephen Sondheim. I will also be visiting a buddy, who has just moved into a new place. I hope i can find some rolling tobacco while i'm in the city.

work has been going really well. I have been lecturing a lot on the role that art and artists play in our communities. The kids seem to be enjoying the talks, they remain engaged and are participating in the discussions in an incredibly open way. I found it rather heartening that even though language divides us, they are still very eager for me to understand the points they are bringing up.

The classes in which i have younger students are less successful on that front. we merely go over grammar. and they hate it as much as I do, I am quite certain. I think they feel that it is their duty to learn English. Their parents sacrifice a lot for them to get this education, so they feel obligated to perform well. But they do not want to be there. Plus this is their summer vacation. I can't say that I blame them.

And finally, in honor of this election cycle, I thought I would post this clip of Audra McDonald and Patti Lupone performing Happy Days/Get Happy on the Rosie O'Donnell Show. Happy Days Are Here Again, music by Milton Ager, lyrics by Jack Yellen is the Democratic Party's Unfficial Theme Song (it was FDR's campaign song during his 1932 run for president). Get Happy, music by Harold Arlen, lyrics by Ted Koehler, was paired with Happy Days as a duet for Barbara Steisand and Judy Garland.

We drive all night through rain, we drive a van that's plain. You'd never believe who's in it

I have long thought that anyone who does not regularly - or ever - gaze up and see the wonder and glory of a dark night sky filled with countless stars loses a sense of their fundamental connectedness to the universe.
- Brian Greene

Well, three Broadway shows this week announced that they will not be opening this season. The Bush economy strikes again.
Backers in the arts have dried up as the National Funding Community has pulled out money in what they consider extracurricular investments, in order to support the social programs that the federal government has decided aren't worth investing with public money.

This past week, we switched from an afternoon/evening schedule, to a morning schedule.
the switch is still settling into my body, but it wasn't so bad.

I have been doing a little yoga before work, then pumping my body full of caffeine. I am going to be weaning myself off the caffeine and picking up more of a yoga schedule. but it will take a little time and commitment, as do all things I suppose.

This weekend, my boss and I went to the ocean and did some swimming. We also went to the Sancheon International Percussion Festival. The city of Sancheon funds a four day festival that is held on water, near one of the bridges. A local group of Korean percussionist called Gong Myoung, performed what I considered the most exciting piece of the night, and they were also the most connected with the audience, the crowd loved them. They were a highly proficient ensemble.

I have to head to the Immigration Office this week. I think I am also going to have a new contract drawn up to accommodate a couple a changes that my boss and I have been talking about. I have an F-4 visa, and my contract is for an E-2. I also arrived in Korea about ten days later than expected so my contract will reflect that difference. I think I may also add six months to the duration of my contract. I think that might be the show though. I am thinking very strongly about a school called the Neighborhood Playhouse, but it's so far off that it will most likely change at least fifty more times before I have to make a decision.

http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/93357/want_high-quality_universal_health_coverage_fix_medicare_first_and_use_it_as_a_model/

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/#93662

http://www.alternet.org/workplace/93509/america%27s_economic_free_fall/

http://www.alternet.org/story/93475/ultimate_nuke_hypocrites%3A_that_would_be_the_u.s./

http://www.alternet.org/drugreporter/93253/govt._milks_stoner_stereotypes_in_anti-pot_propaganda_film/

http://www.alternet.org/workplace/92910/in_a_perfect_storm_of_economic_stagflation%2C_the_yachting_set_says%3A_%22let_them_eat_pizza%22/

It's good, isn't it? Grand. Isn't it Great? Isn't it Swell? Isn't it Joy everywhere, Nowadays.

"I don't know if the average human mind can open wide enough to think of it that way. Last night I slapped a mosquito that was drinking from my arm and then stared awhile at the little splat, feeling mildly avenged at the sight of my foe's blood until I realized, of course, that the blood was my own. Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to do the right thing! We take care of ourselves, we destroy; we don't take care of ourselves, we destroy. Mosquitoes, I have been told, are important pollinators in the Arctic. So, good, they have their place in the grand scheme, and I'll vote against aerial spraying on behalf of everything else that goes before the fall, but it's taking me some time to get to the emotional plane where I can love the mosquito."
-Barbara Kingsolver

So, I have spent most of this week with a cold. which i must say, has been strange as I have also been sweating since I arrived in Korea. But tomorrow, I hope, I will be getting an air conditioner installed. I CAN"T WAIT.

I have also been talking about the nature of art and the role of the artist in society. As noted in an article below, I believe, as do many, that there is a very deep connection between the progress of a society and progress in the arts.
We have also been talking a lot about the nature of scientific exploration and its purpose.
During the last fiscal year the U.S. spent $144.7 million on the NEA's budget. The highest since 1984. Europe and Japan a few years ago were spending between 1.5 and 3 billion dollars on the arts.
The CERN laboratory opened to the public in April of this year, it is noted as the fastest particle accelerator on the planet.

There does indeed seem to be a connection between ideological advancements and scientific and cultural advancements.

http://media.www.michigandaily.com/media/storage/paper851/news/2001/04/12/News/Panel.Explores.Connection.Between.Arts.And.Sciences-1408938.shtml
Science and Art

We also spent the week talking about the definition of poetry, hence the conversation about arts in our cultures. The kids were really willing to have this conversation. As the conversations progressed we moved into Korean history, from the Three Kingdoms, to the Chinese (Mongolian) and Japanese invasions and ultimate occupations. The kids really enjoyed drawing maps to illustrate the changes from, what was once a very sizable piece of Asia that Korea occupied, to its current, considerably smaller take.
They were I think, turned on by the idea that a Western cared about that aspect of Korean culture.

On another very interesting note, in a recent article, reported by Drudge, former U.S. astronaut Dr. Edgar Mitchell stunned many, the world really with his claim that the government has been concealing the existence of UFOs.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24070088-13762,00.html
Former Astronaut claims the existence of UFO's and massive governmental cover up

Below are some articles that discuss the ways in which the economy is being manipulated to protect the wealthy and essentially enslave the middle class in debt and delusion.

http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSN2439039120080724?feedType=RSS&feedName=lifestyleMolt&rpc=22&sp=true
National education solution?


http://www.alternet.org/story/92426/the_u.s._economy_is_socialism_for_the_rich/
Death of the Middle Class

http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/92430/big_pharma_pushes_drugs_that_cause_conditions_they_are_supposed_to_prevent/
legal drugs that are really meant to kill us. SLOWLY

I am so sorry about last night. It was a nightmare in every way, but together you and I, will laugh at last night someday

"A very Faustian choice is upon us: whether to accept our corrosive and risky behavior as the unavoidable price of population and economic growth, or to take stock of ourselves and search for a new environmental ethic."
- E. O. Wilson


I have been eating a lot of seafood, which I must say, I initially had quite an aversion to. But seafood is in almost everything here. I have been asking around and the development of aquaculture seems to be slowly gaining prominence amongst fisheries here.

Sustainability is something that hasn't quite been able to set deep roots here. There is a lot of talk of regional, industrial development, but the idea of bioregionalism, is one that isn't really being talked about.
The Korea Times and the Korean Herald both led off today's issue with the current President reaffirming the government's commitment to regional independence through the industrial development of local economies. One of the centerpieces is the relocation of state run companies into regional provinces. I am curious to see if this is indeed going to be in the best interest of regional areas, or if it will simply extend the might of the centralized government into rural areas.

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2008/07/123_27934.html

I have been researching grad programs, mostly law schools, but also foreign policy programs, and of course acting schools. I am most interested in British and Canadian programs. LAMDA is one of the most attractive programs to me, but i feel that receiving an M.F.A. would be most beneficial. We'll see.

In June, Kay Ryan was announced to be the sixteenth U.S. Poet Laureate. She will be honored in the Fall. Congratulations. As a very amatur poet, it is always heartening to see poetry acknowledged in public forums, the most prominent is obviously the position of Poet Laureate.

Also
Here is a link to a very interesting aquaculture research organization
http://www.seaweb.org/resources/aquaculturecenter/index.php

The St. Louis MUNY is producing Claude Michael Schonberg and Alain Boubil's Miss Saigon this summer. The production stars recent Public Theatre alum Francis Jue as the Engineer, Ma-Anne Dionisio as Kim and Eric Kunze as Chris. The production plays from July 21 - July 27.

Also a Korean production of Stephen Sondheim's Company. They started the season in the end of May and the last performance will be on 17 August. Performances are every day except Monday. On weekdays : from 8 pm, weeekends and public holidays: from 3 and 7 pm. They have seats for 50000 or 35000 Won.