cocktail review no. 75 - Black Devil Martini

Happy Halloween!

How fortunate that Samhain falls on a Thursday (my cocktail-reviewing day) this year. And with the time difference, this review'll show up on your computer screen in the morning, and you'll have time to rush out and buy the ingredients before your big evening spooktacular.

Here's the recipe. It's real simple:

• 2 ounces dark rum
• ½ ounce dry vermouth
• 2 black olives
• orange sugar

Stir and strain into a chilled martini glass that has been rimmed with the orange sugar, then garnish with the black olives. 

photo by Steve Murello

Let me be clear: I did NOT get this recipe from The Bartender's Bible. It's from Home & Garden Television, actually. I'm no fan of the idiot box, but if something made HGTV's website, then theoretically it must be good, right? (Or popular at the very least.)

That being said, I wasn't too sure about using dry vermouth in this drink. It's Halloween. Drinks are supposed to be sweet. Rum is sweet. Why sour a drink with dry vermouth when you could add sweet vermouth and have basically a rum Manhattan? With orange sugar 'round the rim of the glass? That sounded mighty nice to me. (I added a photo so you could get the idea.)

But I got my comeuppance. HGTV is on top of things. This is where that orange sugar comes in. That's right, folks: just as the salt around the rim of a good margarita really makes the difference, the sugar in this cocktail isn't just window-dressing. It actually serves a purpose: to temper the dryness of the vermouth with a bit of sweetness. And it works. As long as you take a nip of orange stuff with every sip, you'll be just fine. The smoky dark rum will be rounded out by tannins and botanicals, which are then balanced by the sugar. The olives at the end make the perfect dessert. Using sweet vermouth would be overdoing it.

Try it if you want, though. It's Halloween. Overkill is underrated.  

making a bug-out bag in Korea

Do you know what a bug-out bag is?

If you don't, follow that link and read the article. You'll need some context. I'll wait.

In case you're too lazy to do that, though, let me just give you the skinny: the term "bugging out" means evacuating your home due to fire, earthquake, poison gas leak, alien invasion...or war. A bug-out bag is an emergency kit, personally assembled by you, a forward-thinking human being, in case you have to be away from your home for 72 hours.

The only natural disasters that face Seoul on a regular basis are monsoons, fires, and maybe the occasional tsunami. (Japan does a pretty good job of soaking up all the typhoons and earthquakes that come this way, though.)

You have to remember, though, what's sitting just 60 kilometers (37 miles) north of this city.

That's right. North Korea.

On Wednesdays I have no class, which means I get to putter around doing whatever I want. Today even more so: I had no choice but to moon around the apartment all day waiting for the deliveryman to arrive with the Coleman waterproof matches I ordered from Gmarket. I bought myself a Stanwell beechwood pipe and some tobacco a month ago, but I've been dogged by the lack of proper lighting materials. You can't use a Zippo to light a pipe, 'cause the butane makes the tobacco taste funny. Moreover, you have to hold the lighter upside-down, and that singes your fingers. Wooden matches, however, neither taint the flavor of your smoke nor char the rim of your pipe. So I had my heart set on matches. After a fruitless search through every grocery mart, convenience store and bar in my area, I found them on Gmarket and ordered them. They were due to arrive today, and the deliveryman wouldn't just leave them at the door; I had to receive them personally. So I couldn't leave.

To pass the time, I watched the 2012 movie Red Dawn.

And suddenly I thought of a much better use for those Coleman waterproof matches.

The movie made me realize just how unprepared Miss H and I were for a disaster—of any kind. She and I have talked about preparing bug-out bags for months now, ever since we moved into our new place in East Seoul. We did all the usual stay-at-home preparations, like compiling our important documents, files, IDs, bankbooks and passports into one convenient and safe location, buying eight liters of emergency water, acquiring flashlights and lanterns and candles and a fire extinguisher, et cetera. But somehow we never got around to putting together a bug-out bag. Senseless, I know. A 72-hour emergency kit would be invaluable in case we had to leave the apartment (and, say, assemble at Jamsil Stadium for evacuation by the U.S. Army as North Korean troops overrun the DMZ).

So I resolved to fix this inadequacy this very afternoon. After taking delivery of the matches, I stuck six boxes into my Timberland® 20-liter backpack. (The other six boxes will go into my drawer with my pipe.)

And that was the start of it all. I hunted high and low through the apartment and located some other items to stick in:

• 2 cans of tuna
• Nature Valley® granola bars
• 2 flashlights
• a deck of cards
• plastic sporknife (yes, they exist)
• diarrhea medication
• multitool
• first-aid kit
• sunblock
• lens wipes
• 2 liters of water
• complete change of clothes
• Colgate® WISP™ toothbrushes
• lensatic compass
• Ziploc® bags
• vitamin tablets
• cash and coins

Noticing that there were several items on my list that just weren't in the apartment, I hopped the subway across the river to Cheonho and went to E-Mart. There, I acquired the following:

• Ottogi tuna (2 bundles of 3 cans, ₩3960 apiece)
• bowls of prepared rice (pack of 3, ₩3450)
• Diget chocolate biscuits (₩1580)
• Dr. You granola bars (2 boxes of 4, ₩3980 apiece)
• kitchen knife (₩2000)
• small paring knife (₩1000)
• folding knife (₩5100)
• hand saw (₩7900)
• folding trowel (₩7500)
• packet of quick-start charcoal (₩1360)
• camping rope (6mm x 10m, ₩2,900)
• duct tape (10 meters, ₩1350)

The items remaining on my list are:

• glow sticks (for when flashlights fail)
• hand-cranked radio
• ponchos
• tarp
• space blankets
• signal mirror (though I think I'll just use the small shaving mirror in my grooming kit)
• safety whistle
• camp axe

I'll have to get these either at Homeplus (which is a subsidiary of Tesco, and generally better stocked than E-Mart) or a camping supply store.

Some of you might scoff at the completeness of this list. "What do you need a hand axe for?" you'll ask. Good question. Hopefully, we'll never need it. But just in case the North Koreans come storming across that border faster than expected (or they bring some Chinese or Russian friends with them), I want to be ready. The worst-case scenario here is Miss H and I hiking through the wild hills of K-Land trying to get back behind friendly lines, or make our way down to Busan to catch a boat for Japan. If we have to rough it for a few days, at least I'll have the tools, ropes, tarps, and matches I need to make our campsites comfortable. Even if the North Koreans never invade (or the zombies never attack, it don't matter to me) we'll at least have a well-stocked supply kit for untoward exigencies.

One more thing.

You'll notice that I entitled this post "making a bug-out bag in Korea."

The emphasis was intentional. There are some items which I would normally include in my bug-out bag, but can't, because I live in Korea. The first one, obviously, is this:

A gun, stupid.

When disaster strikes, people go crazy. Ain't no denying that. I think K (Tommy Lee Jones's character from the Men in Black franchise) said it best:  "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it." So when the crap hits the fan and looters take to the streets, I want to be prepared to defend what's mine: my life, my property and my loved ones. I have to be honest: as an American, I'm a bit uncomfortable living in a country that doesn't allow private gun ownership, especially when there's a militaristic regime lurking on the horizon.

The second item is this:

It's a survival knife, in case you didn't know. An Aitor Jungle King II, to be exact. I haven't really shopped around and chosen the survival knife that best suits me, but this is pretty much what I'm looking for: a straight blade with a saw-edge and a good long grip with a lanyard ring. A splendid knife for cutting branches, skinning game, or personal defense.

Korea has this thing about knives, though. Turns out that any pocketknife with a blade longer than six centimeters (a paltry 2.36 inches) is classified as a "sword" under Korean law, and requires a "sword permit." This means that the 10-inch Bowie knife I have in my footlocker back in California would get me chucked in jail over here. Bollocks. I'm not sure what the laws concerning non-folding or straight-bladed knives are like, but I have a feeling they're similarly restrictive. The three knives I bought today at E-Mart were an attempt to ameliorate this deficiency.

And there you have it! My Korean bug-out bag. Once I acquire those last few vital items (particularly the tarp and ponchos), Miss H and I will be well ahead of any disaster which fickle chance decides to throw at us. With any luck, we'll never need this stuff, but it sure will be nice to have on hand.

And if we want to go camping, we're already packed...

I'm not doing NaNoWriMo this year

...and that's that.

For the past few weeks I've thought long and hard about what to do for National Novel Writing Month. I did it last year with great success, as you know. I banged out about 1500 words a day and finished well past the 50,000-word minimum. On the heels of that success, it behooves me to follow up with another project.

But sink me if I can think of one.

And it's not just the lack of inspiration, either. I'm just busy. Honestly busy.

You know all the other times I said I was busy on this blog? Too busy to write? I was whistling Dixie. I have been hustling these past few weeks. The administration and grading of midterm exams has taken up a lot of my time. I just got the last batch put into the university computer system a few minutes ago, in fact. But there's also household chores, beer-brewing (still need to tell you about the second batch) and whatnot. Miss H and I didn't even get to ride the O-Train like we wanted to last weekend. And even though we joined a gym last Wednesday, we've only been once. For three days we were recovering from soreness, the weekend was hectic and this Monday just finished us off—swamped us. Miss H has laundry to do, groceries to buy and a ton of frozen breakfast burritos to make, while I have dishes to wash, Charlie's litter box to clean, and those aforementioned midterms to input (not in that order). Our apartment's a cluttered, dusty mess. Aside from the usual clothes, trinkets, loose change, receipts, scribbled notes and cordage, there's also three half-filled parcels waiting to be taped up and sent off home. We need to get this place whipped into shape, 'cause I still haven't baptized it with the requisite cocktail party.

Oh, and I did I mention the deluge of condensation that's collecting out on the veranda? Or that my favorite great uncle died two days ago of acute pancreatitis?

Yeah. The world's gone nuts.

My current works-in-progress are taking up my attention as well. I feel like Mugunghwa (the 52,000-word novel I wrote last November) is almost ready. I like it, finally. It looks good. Should be ready for e-publishing by the end of 2013. As for Novel #1, a few tweaks will set it to rights. Then I can start shopping it to publishers in 2014.

So no NaNo this year.

What I will do, however, just to keep pace with Miss H (who is doing it, and more power to her), is start up Novel #4.

Yeah, yeah. I know. Novel #3 is only sixty-eight percent complete. Sue me. I know exactly where it's going. I planned this shit out. I know right where Novel #3 will end, and where Novel #4 will begin. This was Miss H's suggestion, actually. And it's brilliant. Why not start my fourth novel, the third volume of my magnum opus? I might as well get the drop on it. I can easily mow down 50,000 words of it by the end of November. Something tells me it's going to be more fun to write than the previous two. Every book in the series will be more fun to write than the last. And, hopefully, more fun to read.

But I'll let you be the judge of that.

Facebook update

Well, it's officially been a week since I quit Facebook. More than that, in fact: since I live in the future, it's Saturday here, and I quit late last Friday.

The first couple of days went well. I was out and about, getting fresh air, exercising, watching sunsets, scribbling, and generally being productive.

Now, however, I've noticed that things are starting to slow down. Instead of clicking on the Facebook link all the time (which I've since removed from my list of bookmarks), the junkie in me has fallen back on other tactics. I'm beginning to fill the void which Facebook left with other sites: YouTube, TV Tropes, and other vacuous time-wasters. I blew one-and-a-half days of my four-day weekend, Thursday and Friday, doing nothing but staring at screens. As usual. (The remainder of Friday was spent bottling our second batch of home-brewed beer. Then we went to Taco Bell. Sweet!)

This indicates to me that Facebook—as well as the other stuff I do online, even Wikipedia—was never about keeping in contact with my friends. It was about my brain satisfying a craving for input. I'm no autodidact. All the hours I spent on Wikipedia educating myself about the Taiping Rebellion, Mondragón rifles or the Registan were just the fulfillment of an unworthy part of my brain, the information addict. Now that Facebook is gone and I can't satisfy myself with the doings and thrashings of my friends and acquaintances, my mind has begun to toke on my other Internet drugs of choice.

Apparently, I need to meditate more. More walks, more workouts, more bike rides, more contemplative smokes down by the Han River (if my friggin' Coleman matches would ever arrive from Gmarket). Studies have shown that meditation can be as beneficial to your health as sleeping, and even more so. It helps clear your mind of white noise and file everything away, categorizing and sorting, a sort of mental disc defragmentation, if you will. 

Oh, and there's also the O-Train this weekend.

What's the O-Train, you ask?

This.

It's a train line that runs in a big circle through three provinces in northeastern Korea. Just got started in April. There's actually two trains. The O-Train (above) does the complete circle (about four hours); the "O" represents the round shape of the route. The V-Train (below) is a little diesel engine that only runs through a particular slice of the route, but that slice is one of the prettiest, rockiest, most mountain- and stream-filled valleys in Gangwon Province. The V-Train (the "V" stands for "valley") moves slowly but scenically, and on board you'll find nostalgia like hot stoves, wood detailing, and baked sweet potatoes. It's all about atmosphere, you see? If you want the feel of a quaint old narrow-gauge steam railway (without a quaint old narrow-gauge steam locomotive) then you take the V-Train. If you want to sit in comfort and take in all the scenery that Gangwon, North Gyeongsang and North Chungcheong Provinces have to offer, then you take the O-Train.

You know how much I love trains. I've been agog to ride on one of these babies ever since I first heard about 'em. A good long train ride through gorges and over rivers, past trees clad in autumn colors, would do wonders for stress, mental clutter, and ennui.

Now, someday I'd like to ride both, but for the nonce, Miss H and I will content ourselves with the O-Train. (I can always come back and ride that zebra-striped beast later.) Tomorrow (Sunday) morning, my lady and I shall waltz into Seoul Station, grab a mugunghwa train for Jecheon, Gangwon-do, and then hitch a ride on the Big O. That ought to put paid to my inner Internet addict.

cocktail review no. 74 - Greyhound

If you don't like grapefruit, get the heck away from this page, pronto. They might as well have named this cocktail "a screwdriver with grapefruit juice." That's what it amounts to.

• 2 ounces vodka
• 4 ounces grapefruit juice

Pour the ingredients into a highball glass half-filled with ice cubes. Stir and serve.

That's it. That's all there is to it. I have no idea who decided that this was a better alternative to the screwdriver, but that's not how I see it. In my opinion, this highball's good for preventing scurvy and not much else. All you can taste is the juice. If you see fit to add more vodka, then you're just tasting vodka and grapefruit juice. You'd be much better off adding some salt to the rim of the glass and having a salty dog. Or you could nut up and use a nip of tequila or rum or gin instead of vodka, I reckon. Some enterprising young fool has probably already concocted those versions of the drink and given them trite names and is busy disseminating them on the Internet, waiting for you to find and sample them. Go to it!

And for today's image, here's a picture of Margaret Gorman's greyhound, "Long Goodie." And Margaret Gorman. And Margaret Gorman's calves.

You're welcome.

Seolleung and Jeongneung

Another thing this Facebook hiatus has allowed me to do is get out and get some fresh air—and see more of Seoul. Here are some pictures I took of some tombs and tumuli (burial mounds) in Gangnam. These are just three of the many Joseon-era monarchs scattered around Gyeonggi Province, but they're some of the most scenic...and they're right in the middle of the city. Convenient. Seolleung is comprised of two tombs, that of the ninth Joseon king, Seongjong, and that of his concubine-turned-queen, Jeonghyeon. Jeongneung is the tomb of King Jungjong, Seongjong's eventual successor. (Seongjong's in Seolleung and Jungjong's in Jeongneung. Geddit? Good.)

That lower part on the left is the "king's walkway," where the priests and whatnot may tread. The one on the right is the "spirit walkway." Ain't nobody living can set foot on that. I guess it's a sort of runway for the king's ghost when he comes and goes.

A list of all the offerings left at the king's temple. Erm, maybe temple isn't the right word. There's a three-part process. See, the Koreans believe that these tombs are quite literally the boundaries between the spirit world and the real one. So there's the place of purification, where they prepare themselves for the ceremonial rites; these temple thingies (two pictures above), where tributes are laid; and the actual tomb itself, which is the mound below. Three steps to Heaven.

The view from the (burial) mound, or tumulus.

The queen's mound. (No dirty jokes, please.)

I'm not sure whether Seongjong's or Jeonghyeon's view is better.

I really can't think of a prettier place to be planted...

The offering-house and tumuli of King Jungjong (deposed not long after his ascension).

An engaged (recently married?) Korean couple were taking engagement (marriage?) photos under a lovely tree with auburn leaves. Power to 'em. I even got the dorky tourist taking pictures of them.

Inside the house of the tomb-keeper. It's labeled such on the map, but the placard outside said that it was the "ritual house" where purification rites were conducted prior to memorial ceremonies.

And for your viewing pleasure: a 500-year-old gingko tree. You're welcome.

my first V.D.Q.

Have you ever been in the position of not knowing, or not being able to decide, where to go on vacation?

That's what the title stands for: Vacation Destination Quandary. It's never happened to me before. This is all new to me. And not entirely unpleasant, let me assure you.

A dilemma has leapt from the bushes of circumstance and rent me in the gobberwarts. I can't make up my mind where I want to go for my two-month winter break in January and February. I have so many items on my bucket list and my master to-do list (see the bottom right of this page, or the link above). Now that I actually have a stable source of income and money to blow on frivolities like globe-trotting, I can't make a decision to save my soul. Where should I go?

Australia? Japan? Mongolia? Malaysia? Each has its allure.

I've never been to Australia, and I yearn to tread its rugged interior—and sample a few beach cocktails in Brisbane or the Gold Coast. It'll be summer down there when it's butt-cold up in Seoul, you see. That's definitely a mark in the country's favor. And then there's the numerous long-haul railway lines that run around the country's edges and occasionally shoot through its interior. My butt's itching to plant itself on the Ghan or the Indian Pacific and while away three days in style.

Yeah, I know. I've already been to Japan. But I didn't see half of what I wanted to. Or rather, I saw exactly half: the southern half of the country 'twixt Tokyo and Kumamoto. Winter would be the perfect time to get up to the third Japanese home island, Hokkaido, and peruse the wintry scenes there. They have a killer snow-sculpting festival up in Sapporo, I hear. And I wouldn't mind seeing the birthplace of Sapporo beer, either. Or catching a glimpse of Russia from Hokkaido's northernmost city. Or trying my hand at snowboarding for the first time.

Mongolia! Heck yeah, Mongolia! How many people do you know who've been to Mongolia? That's what I thought. Well, buster, you could sure stand to know someone. I'll get that taken care of for ya. I wanna get a load of the Khangai and Altai mountain ranges, see the Genghis Khan Equestrian Statue, and breathe in some of that fresh steppe air. (My secret ambition is to see/climb some of the world's little-known mountain ranges, remember?) I wouldn't mind having tea in a yurt with a yak-herder, either. 'Course, winter might not be the best time of year to head to Mongolia, but that's probably why I should do it: it won't be crowded. Wouldn't hurt to know my way around the Ulaanbaatar railway station, either, for when I go through there on the Trans-Mongolian Express.

Malaysia? Come on. The beaches, man. The beaches. (I hear the grub's to die for, too...I want to try some nasi lemak.) I promised myself that if I ever lived anywhere near Asia I'd find myself in a shack somewhere on a beach with a sweating beer in my hand and fresh seafood boiling on the stove and a wannabe Rastafarian playing acoustic guitar within earshot.

So...you've seen the pictures and heard my spiel for each country.

See why I'm having such a hard time deciding?

recommended reading

So! Now that Facebook is out of the way, I've gotten started with a new book (even though I've only just begun Part Two of Anna Karenina). It's Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Before it became a trite media catchphrase, "brave new world" had a different meaning: a "soulless, streamlined Eden," as this dust cover puts it, one that Huxley both loved and hated, but one he felt was the best possible future for humanity.

I'll tell you this before I say anything else: this is the first book that has ever, ever made me reach for a highlighter. And that happened when I was reading the forewords, introductions and preambles. I've only just started on the actual book itself.

Why? Huxley's message (as demonstrated by the writer of the foreword/introduction, David Bradshaw) is downright pithy. Huxley, for all his obsession with eugenics (and hallucinogenics), still had his head in the right place about politics. He looked at the deadlock that was British Parliament at the time, and he saw the two-party squabbles, mass consumption, material excess and assorted vulgarity going on in the mechanized, polarized, pasteurized United States, and he despaired. This is where it gets kooky, though. He figured totalitarianism was a good idea. Rather like Anakin Skywalker, he felt it was time to give up on parliamentary democracy and subordinate humans to the will of "men who will compel us to do and suffer what rational foresight demands." To cut the red tape, Huxley argued, human beings should give in to abject control, maintained by omnipresent propaganda, recreational drugs, casual sex—the bread and circuses which the empowered use to keep the disenfranchised happy. This end result was desirable, Huxley stated, even when the result was merely a caricature of freedom, a grotesque parody of Utopia—the like of which he wrote about in Brave New World.

(Interestingly, Huxley believed that California was the closest thing to a material Utopia he'd ever seen, which is probably why he and I both consider the place to be so messed up.)

The ambivalence with which Huxley viewed this hateful but efficient Utopia is only too obvious in Brave New World, even in the first few pages that I've read. On the one hand, it sounds like the cynical (or pragmatic) part of Huxley is saying what he actually believes, while the humanist in him can hardly believe what he's hearing. Something's better than nothing, that's the crux of the matter. "Ending," as the slogan goes, "is better than mending."

I can't wait to read the rest of this book. Bradshaw's foreword (and Huxley's own introduction) had me highlighting passages that are of enormous import for my own science fiction writings, particularly my magnum opus:

"It may be that circumstances will compel the humanist to resort to scientific propaganda, just as they may compel the liberal to resort to dictatorship. Any form of order is better than chaos."

Man, that sounds just like the liberals and Democrats in power in America today. They'll impose any kind of restrictive law, regulation or tax on the citizenry if it means getting one step closer to their idea of a utopia.

"The thing which is happening in America is a reevaluation of values, a radical alteration (for the worse) of established standards."

Huxley wrote that in 1926. It still holds true today, given the damage the progressives and liberals have done (and are still doing) to the U.S. Constitution, the economy, personal liberties and the American dream.

Then there's the less politically-charged stuff, quotes that reaffirmed my belief in the aims, messages, and symbolism in my works. Huxley once explained that his aim as a novelist was "to arrive, technically, at a perfect fusion of the novel and the essay." Yes, yes, yes. That's precisely what I'm trying to do. My writings aren't allegorical, but they do contain an underlying point about society. H.G. Wells and Huxley, among others, were well able to churn out so-called "novels of ideas" with aplomb and insight. I hope to do the same.

Bradshaw's foreword also states that, in his 1937 book Ends and Means, Huxley tried "to relate the problems of domestic and international politics, of war and economics, of education, religion and ethics, to a theory of the ultimate nature of reality." Hallucinogens aside, this is another goal of mine: to unite the fundamentals of human existence, the serried pillars of anthropic thought and all the minute tendrils of our industry and endeavor (flaws included) into a single, simple truth.

And yes, before you ask, I do believe that there is one—a simple human truth. It guides my every thought, deed, and written word.

So needless to say, I'm hooked on Brave New World. What I'll read may be monstrous, perverted, outlandish and uncanny, but it's bound to be interesting (and well-written). Though the world Huxley delineates is the antithesis of the one I'm busy crafting (an independent, self-sufficient, free-minded, libertarian, honest, forthright, upstanding sort of world with a good work ethic and a strong sense of right and wrong), I can only learn from reading others' viewpoints. Wish me luck.

Oh, and I finished Part One of Anna Karenina. Which means that I'm, oh, about 11% done with the book. Thanks, Tolstoy, you wordy little bugger.

going dark

Let's get straight to the rat-killer: I have deactivated my Facebook account.

I did this for several reasons. First of all, National Novel Writing Month is coming up again, and though I'm not sure if I'm going to do it again this year, it'd be nice to have Facebook out of the picture for the duration.

Second, I must detoxify. Facebook is by no means the only way I get my kicks out online—there's TV Tropes, YouTube, Wikipedia, IMDB, and a half-dozen other sites I visit regularly (perhaps too regularly). Shutting off Facebook for a spell will, however, reduce the amount of time I spend staring at screens every day. Seriously, I've got a disease. My right hand automatically clicks on Facebook even when I've just closed that window out a few seconds earlier. If Facebook is part of my muscle memory, then I need to take a step back and reevaluate my life. And that creates a nice segue into Reason No. 3.

Third, and most important, there's better stuff I could be doing. I've resolved not to venture back onto Facebook until I've made some serious lifestyle changes, and taken concrete steps toward advancing my life goals. Exercise, fresh air, literature (I'm way behind on those 30 books I need to read this year), writing, home improvement projects, beer-brewing (I haven't told you about that yet, have I?), and taking better advantage of my weekends. By "take better advantage of my weekends" I mean "take advantage of the fact that I live in freakin' South Korea and I need to get out and see some stuff during my last 18 months here." I still haven't seen Hwaseong Fortress, down in Suwon; I haven't set foot in Gangwon Province, nor sunbathed on Sokcho Beach on the Sea of Japan (or the East Sea, as the Koreans insist it be called); I still haven't visited Seoraksan National Park or explored Ganghwa Island or spent a day on the Incheon seafront. Oh, and Korail has a new sightseeing line up and running now, too: the V-Train. Now that I have a kick-ass camera (that Canon EOS Rebel T3i I keep going on about), I really have no excuse not to see any of this stuff, especially as it's all draped in autumn colors.

So that's it! I'm off Facebook. I'll still blog, of course (lots to blog about!) but I shan't show my face around the rest of the Internet until I get some stuff done. Not sure when I'll be back. Hold my calls.  

cocktail review no. 73 - Highball

I've been talking so much about highballs lately that I might as well tell you about the grandaddy of them all, the original sin, the Very First Highball: the highball.

Yes, that's its name. Highball. It's the first highball, so every highball after it was called a highball too. Geddit? Kind of like how everybody calls tissues "Kleenex" or sticky bandages "Band-Aids" even when they're not Kleenex or Band-Aids.

As you can probably tell, I love highballs. I just adore them. They're simple, they're quick, they taste good and they go down easy.

No dirty jokes, please.

From Wikimedia Commons

To clarify, highballs are a large family of drinks composed of a spirit and a larger proportion of an alcoholic mixer, and sometimes incorporating a simple garnish. That's it. Two or three ingredients in a highball glass. The name "highball" comes from the old days of railways and steam engines, when a station master would raise a brightly-colored ball on a chain or a pole (see photo) to let incoming trains know that there were no passengers or mail to pick up. The train wouldn't slow down and waste a lot of coal and time getting up to speed again. It would just blow right through the station at top speed. Hence "highball"...a quickly-made and satisfying libation.

The original "highball" was whiskey and ginger ale. And it's still around today. And still called a "highball," thus confusing bartenders everywhere. Here's the recipe:

• 2 ounces whiskey
• 4 ounces ginger ale

Pour the whiskey and ginger ale into a highball glass half-filled with ice cubes. Stir well.

In the interests of accuracy, I printed this recipe as I saw it in The Bartender's Bible. One part whiskey to two parts ginger ale (or whatever proportion you desire) is just fine and dandy. This is a highball, after all. They're customizable.

No dirty jokes, please.

writing updates, 10/24/2013

Long story short: I have two novel manuscripts completed. One of them is 113,000 words, and the other (which I did for NaNoWriMo last year) is about 52,000. I wrote three or four new short stories over the summer and submitted them to places like 3LBE and Space Squid, but had no luck. Nothing's new on the nonfiction front.

Short story long: I've hit a snag. Specifically with Novel #3, the second book of my science fiction magnum opus.

It's just not fun anymore.

Don't get me wrong; writing itself is still fun. I'm not renouncing the path of the writer, nor the literary world and all the glory and wonder and pain that's in it. Nope; I just mean to say that writing this book isn't fun anymore. I feel more like I'm beating a dead horse than channeling Calliope or Clio. 

I don't know what happened. Maybe I ran out of steam. Perhaps this happens to all writers in the middle of longish works: you bang out a beginning and you know where the end is, but after all those hours of writing and tweaking and fiddling, things turn sour. You wind up becalmed right around Chapter 15.

It's just become a slog. The words don't come. When they do, they're sluggish, dull, drab, and uninspired. I've never felt more like a hack than I have this past month. There isn't a scrap of meaning (or the second best thing, humor) in my writing anywhere.

That's the crux of the matter, right there: I meant for this to be a serious and thrilling adventure tale filled with witty dialogue and sizzling prose, but the latter two haven't materialized. You'd think if I couldn't make the story harrowing and swashbuckling, I could at least make it amusing to read. Even that seems beyond me these days. Every day (well, every three or four days, whenever I'm able to bite back the ennui long enough to open up Microsoft Word) I turn on my computer and stare down what I've written. The reality of its uninventive heavy-handedness is impossible to escape. Rather like a runaway piano.

It's not writer's block. I know where I'm going and what I'm (supposed to be) doing. I just can't do it. The spark's not there. It's supposed to be fun, but it's not. And if it's not a kick for me, I can tell it won't be for the reader. I'm bored stiff by this crap.

So what I want to ask my fellow writers and bloggers is: how do you deal with this sort of thing? How do you escape the doldrums? Where do you find the cool, refreshing zephyr of inspiration to fill your sails and push you to the white shores and the fair green country beyond? How do you bully your brain cells into dancing a mazurka with the English language, instead of stepping all over its toes? How do you coerce one or two of the Muses into sashaying down from on high and cutting the rug on your writing-desk? How do you get those dang juices flowing again?

Creative juices, you pervert.