Ancestors

I recently finished God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, and I would highly recommend it, as I would any of Vonnegut. I'm currently trying to read all of his catalog, prompted my local library now carrying a few of them.

I think this book is definitely not one of his strongest, but it still has greatness. It is sort of like his alter-ego Kilgore Trout's books in a way, in that there is a very serious point to be made in it, but once that is done you're left looking at a rather strange shell. I think the central point to Rosewater and the eponymous Eliot is that with all else gone, humans need to be able to find satisfaction in just being. Eliot tries to give unconditional love to those poor souls around him, regardless if they are able to do any meaningful work, which goes quite against his billionaire father's ethics. In doing this, however, he becomes quite pitiable, and well, because I'm not the writer that Vonnegut is, I have to say he forgets to love himself. I loved the deus ex machina that comes at the end with Trout explaining to Eliot that he's quite alright, and basically spelling out the meaning for the reader. Somehow it works.

Something fascinating about the way the novel was structured was that in the beginning, I was quite onboard with Eliot in thinking that everyone deserves to be loved even if they useless. Most authors would posit that and not put it into practice. Vonnegut, however, really hit me over the head with these useless characters, and I started to get angry near the end when he kept introducing Eliot's clients of uselessness. One after another they came, and I wanted to yell, where is this going? Then I realized that Vonnegut was really challenging the reader to love those that society has deemed unfruitful. Brilliant work.

I was going to tie in the inheritance plot of the book into my writing sample below but that's not really what I want to talk about, and I don't mean to waste anyone's time writing something elegant and meaningless.

So here's something that I have written:

Ancestor

--

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--Syndicated radio ad, rates 8k/min, 0100 spot

--

  As the eyes of the world faded from their monitor, Sera untied her hair and sank into the cushions of her armchair. Wilson laid down the potted tomato stalk onto the shelf, being careful not to entangle himself in the hydroponics. He produced a colorful bag of chips from the side compartment.

  They both shared a smile, self-conscious of the fact that it was one of the few lately that hadn't been broadcast around the world. "This wouldn't make for much of a discussion for Middlebrook elementary, though, would it?" Wil said, pointing to the bag of barbecue rib chips floating a few inches above his lap.

  "No, but its funny to think that it's paying our bills, don't you think?"

  Wil frowned like he always did, analyzing and overthinking. "No, not really. What do you mean?"

  It got tiring, Sera thought. Having just enough room to move your arms and legs, being on conference calls with half the planet watching for 8 hours each day, and then her having to explain her own idle chatter to her partner. That we have to teach beginner courses in agriculture instead of tending to our shuttle. Is that what you signed on for? she almost clarified.

  But she caught herself. "Not too long ago the only affordable journey to Mars would have involved slapping a corporate logo on our rover," she said, knowing her inner thoughts would drive her crazy if she let them. "We have it good, I guess. It's just funny. Not two decades ago the tabloids would have had starlets on the covers instead of spacecrews."

  "Oh. I guess I just never paid much attention to that culture. This is all I ever wanted to do. Or maybe teach science," Wil said.

  "Then I guess you're pretty well set," Sera said. The man seemed more suited to living in space than he did on Earth, even having aced all the exams. As soon as they broke atmosphere, the snoring she had grown so used to in training had disappeared. He passed the chips to Sera, half-empty, but she held her hand up. Rolling it up, he pushed himself off his seat and spiralled behind her to the back of the cabin. The bag floated slowly towards her until she pushed it away.

  "I think growing up during the Second Space Race had a lot to do with it. Those bootstrap guys at NASA, man, I must have wrote to them every month for three years. And when they announced the Mendel rocket, I got the whole school involved trying to get them to come."

  She'd heard the story before, and maybe it was her tiredness, or maybe just wanting to have something new to talk about for once, but she opened her mouth before she heard the rest of it again. "Did I ever tell you? He came to our school. Last stop before the mission, actually."

  There was a loud bang, and Sera looked back to see that he had struck his head while doing his zero-G aerobics. Wil didn't even seem to notice the welt on his head. "You talked to Clifton?" he asked, his eyes wide.

  She turned her head back to the monitors and dials they only ever touched to stay in practice. Idly she rubbed the dust off the Bathroom Heat Control. "You see those pictures and videos of him, but he was much more impressive in person. He tried his best to be approachable, I know now, but we were all so intimidated at the time. I remember him like he had this glow around him." She paused, realizing Wil had come down to sit next to her since she was talking so quietly. There was nothing but her voice. "I had the last question too. I almost didn't ask it, but the teacher insisted. I had done my last three class projects on Mars," she said. They both laughed, because Wil had been obsessed with Mars too.

  "My god, Sera with the last question. Why isn't this in all the tabloids? What did you ask?"

  "Nobody remembers it, I guess. And I've never brought it up, well," she said, rubbing her arm, "because it's a bit embarassing. But, okay. I was panicking and I had a hundred better questions but I forgot them all, and I'm this little pencil-necked girl with braces, you see. So I ask him, and I have this photographic memory of this moment, him looking down at me. I ask him 'Why has it taken us until now to go to Mars?'"

  She didn't expect a gut-wrenching laugh from Wil, but the half-smirk still hurt, like he was pitying her instead of finding it funny. But she went on.

  "He could have written it off, but I'll never forget what he said. He called me by my name, and said, 'We have the technology, we have the money and materials. Mars might only be a footnote in our history if we want it to be. What we need is more people like yourself. People who care and who have a sense of adventure, to advance our knowledge of the universe. People who want more.' I'll never forget that."

  Wil thought for a moment in the silence. "He was a great man, but also a good one. He must have been, to make you feel welcome like that."

  She dimmed the lights of the cabin, and they moved towards their bunks. "I had this irrational guilt, though, as if I thought I was the last person he ever spoke to. It didn't make a lot of sense, but I couldn't get it out of my head. Like my question implied some sort of fault with him, or with the program. And I couldn't get it out of my head, that maybe he... that my question was his last thought, as the lander went down."

  "Nothing good comes of thinking like that. There wasn't any good footage, but from what the camera on the orbiter saw, those shields burnt up immediately," Wil said, cracking his back. "Now we've got backups, and backups of backups, and not saying we can slack off, but that won't happen to us. We're ready now, and this is just the start."

  "Shit, I'm sorry, I don't mean to make you nervous," Wil said in the darkness. "Sera?"

  "Check one," she said.

  The air filter whirred.

  "Check two," he said.

  "All clear," said the dispatcher. "Prepare for landing procedure at zero-hundred."

  She stared at the corn stalk in the dimness as sleep came to her. The plant Clifton had brought to her class had outlived him. In her dreams, the last words spoken aboard the Mendel came to her again, as clear as ever, "I see--" the last words before the shock of a whole era.

--

  The camera's light went from green to red, and they wasted no time putting the golfing equipment away. "Crazy to think we actually practiced in a simulator for this, and in the end its not all that different, right? Just got to get the swing down," Wil said, as they packed away the clubs and astroturf. "Right?" he asked. They had everything tied down in the rover, and Wil sank into a sullen silence as he commandeered from his wheel. Dispatch's chime came through their speaker and reminded them of their mission, but it could have been automated for all she knew, they'd heard the same thing so many times. Once it ended they drove on for a long time, only speaking which dispatch needed their routine updates.

  "Look, I'm not upset at you or anything. We're telling the public this is our rest time, right? But we're still out here on the red planet kicking up dust after twenty hours, so pardon me if I'm a little irritable. Really, it's nothing you can help."

  "Okay. Sorry," he said, and adjusted his helmet. "What do you think we're going to find?"

  "Nothing, I hope." She noticed their path was taking them higher and higher up towards a plateau, but it was nothing that deviated from their route.

  "Just makes me feel like a bit like a pawn, you know? I had to keep hoping those kids wouldn't ask me a question I had to lie about. Thank god they didn't. How did you feel when you learned Clifton's team didn't go down near the eye of the storm? That really threw-"

  "Stop!" she yelled, and pressed the emergency brake behind her wheel. The rover skidded to a halt, pounding them with stones and covering them in a red mist of dirt. She had several voices from Dispatch inquiring just what the hell had happened. She switched her communications off as Wil tried to make sense of what she was doing and appease Dispatch. "Don't get out of the rover," she said to him.

  Despite his protests, she went to the front of the rover, and leaned down. When the dust finally cleared, Wil saw the same thing she had. A dessicated corn husk, blowing through the wind like a tumbleweed. "Clifton's team," he said, "Mendel." He switched off his communications as well, and they looked about themselves. 

  The lander was nowhere to be seen, but to their left there was a recession in the wall.

  She turned her communications back on. "Markings on a wall, like they've been chipped away by tools," she said. "We're going to investigate," she said, and switched it back off.

  Inside the cave was completely dark, and they turned on their suit lights. The cave lit up in an instant. She nearly tripped on an old generator, and she followed it up to what it powered. Above them hung several heat lamps, enough to have lit the whole cave. That was not what took the breath from Sera.

  Most of the cave was taken up by crops. It was all brown and dead, but they seemed animated by a dull breeze. They could tell which plant was which by the stakes planted next to each. Corn, tomatoes, beans, it had all grown here, but when the heat lamps went dark, it had all turned dead, dead, dead. In the corner nearest them, Sera kneeled and sifted through a bag of seeds. Wil appeared at her shoulder, pointed to the far side of the cave.

  They entered the makeshift barracks, the red blinking lights of their cameras giving strange illumination to the ruin, much too late.

Ancestor

Edit: I revised this story and have posted the new version above

Amantissima et Delectissima

I'm not sure who this could possibly interest, but I wanted to write a few thoughts on what I've recently reaffirmed to be my most beloved novel. Generally I write the sort of thing I'd like to read, but, this blog is just a place for me to deposit my thoughts, like loose change on the mantel.

I have no particular genre preferences, especially when in terms of what I read. Generally speaking the way I think of it, if I can sink my teeth into it like a great bone or a meaty steak, I will enjoy it. I'm trying to accomplish this feeling with what I'm writing now, and I have recently been reading thicker volumes of things like histories, or books with great amounts of detail like A Song of Ice and Fire. In equal measure though I enjoy novels like the family romances of John Irving or a veritable tome like D.F. Wallace's Infinite Jest (the ending left a sour taste in my mouth and I'm not sure I can work up myself to write a whole post about it). So why then, is the book that I've read more than any other, a brief pastoral story at only 130 pages by the name of A Month in the Country?

Thanks to my parents mailing my forgotten copy from Arizona, I remember. Just because a story is brief does not preclude it from having volumes to tell us. J.L. Carr's precisely framed story is about love, loss, and the past. And above all, art. I think if I were to quote one passage that could say the most about the story, it would be this, referring to an ages-old wall painting the protagonist Tom Birkin has spent the entire novel toiling to unveil:

"[...] standing there before the great spread of color; I felt the odd tinglng excitement and a sureness that the time would come when some stranger would stand there too and understand."

Death, the great equalizer, and art, the one human accomplishment that, with any luck, will last through the ages.

It is an easily accessible story, encompassing only a few months in idyllic Oxgodby, a tiny town in north England. Those who come into the story with a knowledge of the story's surroundings will have access to so much more, however. The Great War, and its creation of great artists and minds while leaving them husks of men (a passage from the story in which he mentions the sensation of a nearby explosion first sucking the air out of their foxholes and then exploding it back in), the impending introduction of automobiles completely changing everyday lives, especially those of rural folk, or simply anyone old enough to have experience nostalgia and the regret of not taking chances they could have, all of this has an effect on the reading of the story. Yes, despite being an easy read there is much archaeology in this story. I remember the first reading I had, an important passage near the end had me stumped.

"amantissima et delectissima. vale..."

I searched everywhere for it, and found the literal latin translation, but only rereading the novel brought me succor. Placed at the very beginning of the book, and only referenced again in the end! This is the sort of reading that brings me back. We are so lucky to have such things as books to return to like bottled time. We are able to recall them at will, unlike our own imperfect memory of such a thing as a simple summer day, with the future stretching out like a long green meadow...



A Month in the Country is available at your local bookstore, and it was also made into a passable movie in 1987 with Colin Firth and Kenneth Branagh.

New Years in Gyeongju

Tumuli

Buried bones of the bone caste

I spent the first night of the New Year and the day after in Gyeongju, a southeasterly city in South Korea near the coast. Originally the plan was to do some skiing around Korea, but it seems you need to make reservations months in advance. I felt more like doing something low-stress and spur-of-the-moment.

View from my room

So it was off to Gyeongju, four hours away on a surprisingly relaxing bus ride. I stayed at the Saraechang Homestay, a nice little, well, I guess you would call it the equivalent of an inn. I had my own little room, but besides that the amenities were shared. It was built in the old fashion of an upper-scale home, and it was very nice but I hit my head more than a few times on the doors that were at the height of my collarbone.

Gyeongju (not to be confused with Gwangju but also called Kyongju) is a very old city, that was the capital of the Silla Kingdom. Silla eventually united and was a remarkably long lasting dynasty, holding the same capital for nearly a thousand years. All that means theres quite a lot of architecture that has luckily been preserved, though of course over the years much has been lost. At one point I realized I was standing on what had been an ancient fortress, and the only thing that still remained of it was an ice storage house, of all things. Beneath the art museum, there was an old cart path that had been dug up as part of the excavations for the museum. There's really something to be said for a place where every step you take has been well-tread by the great and low for thousands of years, and where each layer of earth might hold some new treasure. It is a common thing for many Korean landowners wishing to expand their house or business to come across some artifact, and then the archaeologists have to swoop in, especially in areas as old as Gyeongju.

Cart path

For whatever reason, I thought the sign saying that the cart was a recreation was just too funny

Bell of King Seongdeok

Massive, and made of stone

Gyeongju is boosted quite a lot by tourism, it was pretty quiet when I went. I think my interest in a historical, rather than an EXTREME SPORTS, vacation was due to, besides my inaction, a growing interest in myself in reading histories. Of late I've mostly been reading French histories and novels, not for any particular reason but for my interest. I think I may like to take a vacation in Europe once my contract is ended, if I can afford it that is. But so it goes.

Observatory

One of the finest books I've read recently was The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut, a fantastic story about human choice, religion, brainwashing, wealth, and, love? I'm not so sure of that one. I've read Vonnegut books before, and though there is always some bleakness in addition to the humor of his stories, and that is what I love them for, unlike Slaughterhouse or Mother Night I find the horror of this book hard to look past. What might help explain it is one of his rules for writing:
     
 " Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of. "

Gold really is forever. This was found in a tomb!

Certainly in the course of the book Malachi, Mrs. Rumfoord, the martians, hell, the whole human race in addition to Rumfoord and his damn dog have all sorts of awful things happen to them. Its as though they're all hit with a frying pan and in the end the message is, ah, well, love your neighbor. When you go searching for the meaning of life that's all we're really left with, in the end. "Love whoever is around to be loved."

Above, just the side dishes

Well that's all I have the time to write for now, as my belly is rumbling. While in Gyeongju I tried the delicious local dish known as ssambap, though its not really strictly local, as I've had the same in Seoul but it was a little bit better in Gyeongju. Basically you get a headspinning amount of side-dishes, some pork shoulder, and some soup, and you stick whatever you want into some cabbage or lettuce leaves and eat it all in a gulp. It's quite good, especially for someone with an appetite like mine. I also procured some Hwangnam bread, which is a bread pastry popular throughout Korea but originating in Gyeongju, filled with delicious red bean paste. Until next time,

Early Thanksgiving

-A street in Hongdae-

  Chuseok is the Korean equivalent of Thanksgiving. Just about every culture has a harvest festival, as it is a very important time of year. Its not something developed cultures have to worry about now, with our GMOs and factory farms, but it used to be that a poor crop would be devastating to a community. This brings to mind a common Korean greeting I've heard a few times now-- "Have you eaten today?" Sometimes it is changed to "Have you eaten rice today?" on account of traditionally eating rice with every meal, but it is a reminder of a time when people used to ask another had they eaten, because some would have answered no. I think that I am most thankful for never needing to experience the true meaning of Hunger.

  I had quite a long weekend, and used it to meet up with some friends I have made in the last few weeks. Before I go into the specifics of which, I will briefly mention how I have completely come around on the idea social media the past week or so. In college, when I had to walk outside to see someone who I could speak the same language with, I never really understood the use of having a Facebook account. It's a way of keeping in constant contact with friends, which is why I've kept it until now. Its supposed to be a way of meeting new people, but that's seemed absurd to me because the only people I've 'met' before on Facebook are spambots.

-I don't even know-

  Now, though, I am in a place where I do not speak the language, and I would have no idea how to do much of anything without completely abusing the generosity of the English speakers who employ me. It's pretty neat how friendly foreigners are here, and willing to meet up to do random things.

-The Supposed 'Bear Fucker'-

  Back on topic, this weekend I was quite busy. Before heading out, I had a Bear Fucker, which I thought sounded more manly than it ended up being. After looking it up, I'm pretty sure they did it entirely wrong and I'm pretty sure they just gave me wine. I'm not looking anything about it up on Google because, well, you can imagine.

-Wishes tied to this monument will be burned for luck. Korean Folk Village-

  I went to Insadong again, which is a classic attraction in Seoul, with a lot of neat shops and a really weird take on ice cream cones. One thing I'm continually on the lookout for is getting some wooden masks as a souvenir. I really find masks fascinating, but I've seen the same designs in different places, which tells me the ones I am seeing are mass-produced. That's pretty much to be expected, but the problem is that I'm sure they mark it up for those who think they are genuinely handmade. If I'm going to pay that price, I'd like the real thing. At another market, I took a tour of some of the more out-there foods. I'm not sure I'll ever sit down at a place that has a deflated pigs face sitting on its counter. I'll pass on eating cheeks and eyes, thank you. When we settled into a booth all I could really manage was to eat the egg-covered zucchini slices. It's not quite The Jungle, but I couldn't hold back a chuckle when the lady serving us gave us an open water bottle with bits of greasy food all over the upper half of it. At least she trusted us enough to hand us hers.

  There was also an old district of Seoul I visited, with many traditional houses, or hanok. Most similar areas have been demolished, especially in Seoul, and it was very impressive seeing this old and beautiful architecture all crammed together, and there were some nice views. We also went to a noraebong, a karaoke bar where you rent your own private room and share your love of singing and probably drinking. It was quite a high-class place, so walking through the hallways and listening to the tortured, boozed-up singing ringing off the walls made me think I was in a deleted scene of The Shining.

-Jongmyo-

  The last stop on Friday was Jongmyo. This royal shrine was really awe-inspiring, for the fact that the main shrine is massive. There would be food offerings laid at the top of the steps for the royal ancestors, and that would have been a sight to see. It is much larger in person than as it looks in the picture. Leading up to each of the shrines were stone pathways, which guests were not supposed to walk on, as they were meant for the spirits. Of course, people did it anyways. I wonder if there was any sort of punishment for people who did this when it was first built.

-Silkworm cocoons!!-

  The next day I returned to Yongin and went to the Korean Folk Village. This was absolutely the most fun I've had in Korea so far. For only about $15 there was a myriad of things to do and see. Of course it is pretty touristy, as something with that name can only be. However there was a nice, informative (and most importantly in English) museum that led visitors through the holidays and everyday life of a Korean village. I saw silkworm cocoon threading for the first time, and I badly want to go back and shamelessly ask, can I touch it, please please please?

  The main attraction of the place is the many traditional houses from all over Korea, and each has a little information about how the people who built it lived. The clothing looked coarse as sandpaper, and each region had their own unique materials for roofing, from stone to bark. There were also a number of other things, like a tightrope artist, an impressive routine of dancing and music that I can't even describe, and too many other things to fit here. I can't wait to go back and see other things that I missed. There is some traditional tea which interests me, and what is called the 'Korean B-Boy Experience' which we missed by just two days. I am certain that there will be many fascinating insights into these traditional B-Boys and their culture...

  Hypothetical readership, is there any thing you would like to see me do or learn about in Korea? I don't have an excess of free time, but I'd like to see as much of Korea as I can, or at least do something creative while I'm here. I'm thinking of going to a jimjebong, even though it terrifies me, mostly because it seems like an experience I won't get anywhere else.

  This is the cutest puppy I've ever seen, and he greets me from a nearby apartment just about every day when I go to work and when I come home. No idea if he's supposed to be here or not.

Two Weeks

   I am starting this blog, and I have no idea how much I will be updating it. I've started journals before, and usually stop after a week. Perhaps I will enjoy the fact that a few eyes might see this, or maybe I will be turned off down the road that I am not putting down more personal things. We'll see. The point is, I am writing this first post now, because there are things I have to write, and writing is always good and I need to do more of that. Writing, that is. On the topic of writing I've been doing so almost every day this week, as there is downtime at my job after I'm fully prepared for the day, and there is this maddening gap of time where I can either twiddle my thumbs or actually write something, damnit! It is perfect, exactly what I was looking for at this point in my life. Now I just need to figure out if I can actually hack it.

  Anyways, point is I make no promises for this blog but that it will be here, on the wide wide internet, which in its enormity will probably not mind it being there too much.

Part 1, Or: How I Am Getting On

   Quite nicely, thank you for asking.

   I've figured out all the essentials, such as where the heck you buy things. The giant superstores are hidden underground, which is a change of pace from Arizona where you cannot miss the glowing WALMART upthrust several stories into the sky. The trash, oddly enough, was a complexity that needed figuring out, since you can only throw trash out using certain bags that you must buy from convenience stores, and then you must sort out the trash from the recycle. And it seems people take recycling very seriously here, so I've got to be careful to separate the cardboard from the plastics, as well.

   I haven't quite figured out how to meet people yet, but then I was never very good at that in a country where the majority of people spoke the same language as me. Trying to get out there, and get better at meeting more people is one of the reasons I made this move, and to my credit I've made some effort to explore the city every day.

 Independence Day

   Today was Korean Independence Day, or Gwangbokjeol, celebrating liberation from Japan in 1945. I really would not have known this had I not had the day off from my work today. I suppose I can't blame myself too much, its not like anyone is translating the festivities into English, but it does put into a light the disconnect an expatriate feels living in a culture not his own.

   This brings me to what I believe will be a common theme during my stay in Korea: facing up to your own faults. Not to overgeneralize (but that's exactly what I will do), but Koreans seem to be very direct with questions. For example, asking you whether you are married or not, what religion you are, all within minutes of your first meeting. About any American reading this will think 'That's not so bad,' and it's not, but imagine someone asking such personal questions right away in America. It just doesn't happen. Getting back on track with facing up to your faults, I almost laughed when someone I was getting coffee with asked me my religion, then followed up by questioning why I came to Korea in the first place since I don't speak the language at all. I don't really have an answer to that. Maybe it was a dumb decision in the eyes of others, but with mine I just see a whole country to explore and a year to do it in.

   Another thing I have to face up to is my reasons for being here, and the fact that nothing I'm doing here is automatically praiseworthy. One thing I've learned in my short time here is that I am probably the most common foreigner to ever come to Korea. Pretty much the only thing the government wants foreigners to do is teach, and they're clamping down on anyone who does so much as tutor on off-hours. Also, my request online to find some writers groups near me was met with a comment that half of the people who come to Korea end up failed writers. That's not really news though; all writers are failed writers. Some just pull up their bootstraps and crawl their way out of the muck afterwards. The rest clean themselves off and wonder what the hell they were doing and go make actual money.

   Anyways, duck. I hope this blog doesn't seem too pessimistic, especially having only gotten 2 weeks on, but people who know me know that when my sense of humor isn't grim, it's irreverent. When I look back on whats noteworthy of a day, I usually omit the happy things. Maybe its because you learn more from the muck.

PART 2, Or, Happy Things

   I went to Central Park today, and did my best to get lost. Unfortunately I found the fastest path to the center of the park and then straight out again, but it was a nice walk. Hopefully someone will understand what I thought of immediately when I saw three stone heads lying near a walkway (you can see the third one a little ways back, there). Once I get a phone and a data plan I will feel more confident going further and further away, but for today at least I had a good adventure in a surprisingly large and well-maintained park for an urban area. This is near Seohyeon Station, Bundang. The duck you see above quacked when I said annyeong to it repeatedly, but I think he got offended that I didn't use a more formal greeting and he paddled away with his homies.

   Goals for next weekend include: checking out some more foreigner-friendly bars, trying to order food at a more traditional Korean restaurant even though none of them seem to have English menus and probably not even any pictures I can point mutely at, and a playing of Les Mis at the outdoor arena I saw advertised while I was at the park!

BONUS PICTURE

I hear they go quite nicely together.