Hong Kong, day two

Did I say that we had a fantastic view from Room 2504 of the ibis North Point Hotel? I was whistling Dixie. As we peered outside on the wet morning of Monday, August 4, we saw two rusty brown hawks circling each other as they rode a thermal updraft up the side of the hotel building; barges, junks, yachts, cruise ships, and ferries scudding across the iron waters of Victoria Harbor; rain pounding down in Kowloon; the hoary cloud-swept peak of Tai Mo Shan; and jets descending toward Lantau Island. What a view to wake up to. 

We were lazy most of the day, waiting for the spectacular thunder showers to pass and the heat to subside. In the early evening, we took the tram (the streetcar, not the subway) west to Hong Kong Station.

Then we rode the Star Ferry from Pier 7 across Victoria Harbor to Tsim Sha Tsui.

 

  

There was one thing I knew I HAD to do in HK: the Avenue of the Stars, specifically the Bruce Lee statue. I admired the man's physical prowess and wanted to pay my respects to satisfy my rampant, querulous, needy, domineering inner geek. I also got to mack on some grilled cuttlefish. 

Heather returned to the hotel and I rode one stop north to Jordan to meet Jeff, my old Canuck friend from Geoje, whom I'd last seen in Ho Chi Minh City. He and his fiancée Jenn had taken the Reunification Express in the opposite direction I had—up to Hoi An and the beaches there. He was in Hong Kong on a long layover to Seoul to pick up the wedding ring, and she'd already gone back to England. We thought we'd meet up in Kowloon for dinner and a drink. I nabbed some postcards at the Temple Street Night Market and we located a restaurant. It was down a shifty-looking side-street, swathed in plastic awnings but with plentiful light, electric fans, and TVs showing period dramas. The menu was in English and 640-ml bottles of Tsingtao were only HK$15 apiece. We feasted on fried rice, a satay beef bowl, and fried pork ribs—suspiciously similar in taste and appearance to any Californian Chinese buffet, and therefore likely loaded with MSG. 

For drinks we rode the subway back under the harbor to Hong Kong/Central. We popped out of Exit C, turned left up a hill, went right, traversed a staircase, followed a sinuous skyway for a few hundred yards, and found ourselves in SoHo, a favorite haunt of Jeff's and a great many other hungry, thirsty expats. the place was full to bursting with trendy, overpriced foreign restaurants catering to affluent residents of the Mid-Levels and accessed by a unique system of tiered, slow-moving escalators. One has merely to stand and browse as one is lifted up the steep hill, and disembark at one's leisure. 

Having already stuffed ourselves in Kowloon, Jeff and I were only interested in beverages. We had a nightcap at Yorkshire Pudding, a British pub. We sipped Tetley's beer and Magners cider, watched Australian rugby, overheard rugby-loving Americans nearby exchanging ribald badinage, and eyed the exotic fish darting to and fro in the big aquarium tank behind the booth. 

Then we went home. And that was day two.

30 Days to a Better Man, Day 2: shine your shoes

from Flickr

Thank goodness I have a father who has nice shoes and takes care of them, and taught me how to shine properly. This daily challenge was a breeze.

I followed the instructions in AoM's article to the letter, right down to the swabbing-with-rubbing-alcohol-to-rid-the-shoes-of-any-dirt-jammed-into-cracks-along-with-the-old-polish bit. I didn't do every pair I own; my black Oxfords are secure in their dust-free box, waiting for me to trot out my best (and only) three-piece suit. Not to mention that it's already 11:19 p.m. and I want to finish this challenge before midnight. I got up at nine o'clock and left the house at noon to head to Yangcheon-gu to brew beer with Brant and Joseph and we watched Hatari! and drank beer and had a great time and I only just got home —

Hold on a minute. This is sounding like an excuse. Integrity is one of the values I put down yesterday. So I went to the trouble of digging the Oxfords out of their hidey-hole and looking 'em over. They didn't need shining. Honestly. They didn't.

So, to business. I got out the bottle of rubbing alcohol that I normally use for cleaning my pipe...

 ...and my trusty old six-piece shoe polish kit from Target, given to me many moons ago by my parents as a Christmas gift (and never used)...

...and got straight to work. I've shined shoes before, so I wasn't bumbling my way along. The time flew by. I didn't have Blue Lincoln Wax that the article recommends, but I buffed and buffed until the shoes shined. See the results for yourself:

Stick around for Day 3!

2013...as it relates to 2014

Dear Blogsphere: 

Miss H has flown home for her brief winter break. I just saw her off at the sparkly, well-lit Incheon Airport. I now have eight lonely days to devour pungent seafood, scratch myself, burp, shower every 72 hours and just generally act like a mangy orangutan an unwed male twentysomething.

This was originally supposed to be a post about what I did during my recent Facebook hiatus, but then I thought I'd go one better and tell you what-all I did during 2013. (It's becoming a tradition.)

So here, as noted in my little black spiral-bound notebook, is what I did during the two-month break from the Book o' Faces:
 

• read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
• started reading The Great Shark Hunt by Hunter S. Thompson and Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (which are the reasons I didn't read more during the break)
• wrote, printed, administered and graded midterm exams
• wrote, printed, administered and graded final exams
• bet on the winning horse and scored ₩1,200 at Seoul Racecourse Park (about $1.10)
• watched the sunset from Gwangjin Bridge (pictured below)
• toured Seolleung and Jeongneung
• found and ordered Coleman waterproof matches (for my pipe) on Gmarket
• joined a gym
• rode a two-person bike with Miss H for the first time (at Ttukseom Resort)
• watched Red Dawn (2012), Jeremiah Johnson (1972), Wrath of the Titans (2012), The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013), Catching Fire (2013), The Edge (2010), and In the Fog (2012) 
• had the fraying cuffs of my two coats repaired (our tailor's a magician)
• assembled a bug-out bag (in case the NoKos invade)
• discovered a bitchin' new bar in Cheonho (Heaven's Key)
• tried to catch the O-Train and failed
• edited Novel #2
• got nearly 40,000 words into my NaNoWriMo project
• took my computer to Gangnam to be repaired
• failed at NaNoWriMo
• brewed my first partial mash beer with the boys (a British red ale)
• drank expensive cocktails on the 41st floor of the Sindorim Sheraton Hotel with Miss H
• explored Gapyeong and Namiseom
• tried a new shrimp-rice dish at the corner diner
• dumped the red ale down the toilet (suspected bacterial infection)
• bought a new backpack for Australia (₩58,000)
• went to the Seoul Lantern Festival
• took several glorious naps
• bought my own set of beer-making supplies
• had corned beef hash at Butterfingers in Gangnam
• went to Incheon for our customary Thanksgiving dinner at Fog City Diner and bought sourdough bread from the proprietor
• had my first halfway-decent conversation with a Korean cabbie
• brewed (and drank) a nice chocolate porter with the fellas
• finally mailed those souvenirs from China to my parents
• rode down to Busan on the KTX for a Christmas party; met up with everyone on Geoje Island; had tapas and wine, watched a football match at an Irish pub, and wound up at a noraebang
• watched the sunset from the top of the Lotte Department Store in Nampo-dong, Busan
• caught the night train to Seoul
• booked my Hokkaido junket
• reconnected with an old friend (my illustrator)
• came down with rhinitis
• went on the Itaewon Foodie Crawl (French, Spanish, Russian and Italian)
• picked new names for the fictitious cities, countries and continents in my sci-fi series
• brewed a nice ginger IPA with my beer-buddies
• did 18 hours of extra classes during finals week
• took Novel #3 to 81,000 words and Novel #4 to 38,000 words

And here, included as a...supplement? Addendum? Appendix? Well, whatever. Here's the rest of what I accomplished in 2013:

• read Hiroshima by John Hersey, Skybreaker and Starclimber by Kenneth Oppel, Distant Thunders and Rising Tides by Taylor Anderson, Dubliners by James Joyce, The Last Time I Was Me by Cathy Lamb (part of a book-exchange program with Miss H), and five or six other titles I don't recall...far short of my goal of 30
• tried and failed to keep a book diary (obviously)
• finished my contract at Avalon English in Bucheon
• moved to Seoul, the world's most populous city (proper)
• got a job at Sejong University (and successfully completed my first year there)
• got straight A's on all my teaching evaluations, too
• started the semester with tonsillitis, though
• attended a family reunion in Iowa in July
• swam in a man-made lake
• went to see Jesse James's childhood home
• finally got to eat (and drink!) at the Yardhouse in Victoria Gardens
• fired a Smith & Wesson Model 10 
• traveled through western Japan on the Shinkansen in August (Tokyo → Kyoto → Kumamoto)
• rode the JR Beetle from Hakata to Busan
• ate horse meat
• got into home brewing with my coworkers
• toured Beijing and the Great Wall of China for the Chuseok holiday
• ate fried scorpion (that was on the bucket list!) as well as roast duck and bullfrog soup
• picked up a pile of PC games on Steam
• wrote humor pieces for Rabble Rouse the World
• bought a Stanwell beechwood pipe and Captain Black tobacco
• purchased a bottle of 10-year-old Ardbeg single malt Scotch with spare change
• started Novel #4
• submitted a dozen or so short sci-fi stories to e-magazines like Space Squid, 3LBE and Daily Science Fiction (publication still eludes me, however)
• grew a beard (bucket list!)
• received an e-reader (a Nook) from my significant other as a gift; haven't touched it

And that's about all I can think of for now.

Here's the part where I'm supposed to tell you what I've got planned for next year. Alright, here you go: another two semesters at Sejong University, the Sapporo Snow Festival in Hokkaido in February, a summer trip to Alaska and some other destination as-yet-unchosen, e-publishing Novel #2, shopping Novel #1 to publishers, finishing Novels #3, #4 and possibly #5, smoking the dickens out of my pipe, moving out of this hellhole villa, brewing the tastiest beers this side of the East China Sea, planning my wedding, and growing this beard down to my sternum.

Postman out.

beardly updates

As many of you may know, I'm trying to grow a beard. I grew a paltry, thin one last spring when the cherry blossoms were blooming (why should they have all the fun?) but shaved it off shortly thereafter. I sculpted the remains into a Van Dyke, which has sustained me ever since.

But with the approach of No-Shave November this year, I decided I wanted more. A month without shaving would be the perfect chance. That scraggly thing I'd had on my face in spring wouldn't suffice to knock "grow a beard" off my bucket list. I'm aiming for a real beard this time around. Something that would make a mountain man proud, or at least refrain from calling me "pilgrim."

But first, a confession: I have been a bit unfair. I quit shaving halfway through October, and it's halfway through December now, so my nascent beard is obviously a bit longer than it should be. My facial hair grows really slowly, you see. Dang genetics. None of the Post men can grow beards. I suppose my Germanic/Viking ancestors were like cats: they got to the warm, sunny New World and started shedding. The big, bushy, manly beards must've been the first things to go. Accordingly, I had to hedge my bets a little. So I started earlier than everybody else.

This is what I've got now:

These were taken, incidentally, under the Gwangjin Bridge, on the eastern shore of the Han River, during a lovely December day. That's my new Stanwell pipe clenched between my teeth.

I'm going to let nature run its course through Yuletide, January, and the ensuing February. After I get back from Hokkaido on February 9, I'll do another post and show you all what my new-and-improved beard looks like. I've come to terms with the fact that it'll never equal the thick, woolly thing Robert Redford had stuck on his face all through the film Jeremiah Johnson, but I think I've found a suitable middle ground: Jürgen Prochnow from Das Boot.

Minus the weary, haunted look of utter despair. 

I frickin' love that movie, not just for the drama, the splendid acting and the gritty realism, but for the epic beards that the crew sprout over the course of the film. Submarines and submariners have always fascinated me: the camaraderie they necessarily had to have, the insensate dangers they faced on a daily basis, the physical hardships of life in a metal tube, and their downright slovenliness (sanctioned under the circumstances). There was an enthralling article called "Sweat and Rum" in the BBC News Magazine a couple of days ago. It centered around the crew of the HMS Ocelot and other British submarines of the 1960s. "The Queen's Pirates" they were called. Feckin' awesome.

Anyway, Prochnow—who is one of my favorite actors on the basis of Das Boot alone—and I have a lot in common in the facial hair department. His beard runs along his jawline and flows down to his neck, steering clear of his cheeks. Mine does the exact same thing. So that manly chinwig you see in the picture above? That's what I'm going for. Sans blood and sinking submarines, of course.

See you in February... 

Sagano bamboo forest

You know how there's a scene in every worthwhile martial arts film where the protagonist and an army of mooks (or just one persistent boss) have a duel to the death in a bamboo stand? The greenish trunks go up all around, and the floor is littered with their narrow leaves, dyed beige in death? Usually some of the bamboo trees will be heartlessly severed in twain by a wild stroke of an adamant sword, and the fight will move into the realm of fantasy and conclude in the upper canopy, with the contestants walking on air.

Well, if you've ever wanted to feel what that would actually be like, you gotta head to a bamboo forest. And fortunately, that's just what the quaint, archaic little community of Arashiyama (also known as Sagano) has tucked away in its western depths, near the River Hozu.

I could have gotten into a rickshaw at the foot of the Togetsukyo Bridge and had the driver take me to there, but (a) I didn't know what the word for "bamboo" was in Japanese, and (b) I felt far too sweaty to sit on those red velvet seats and muck 'em up. So I just hoofed it. It wasn't a long walk.

It wasn't a long walk through the forest, either: just a few hundred yards. But in that meager space is packed a lifetime of exotic and delightful imaginings: tigers leaping out of the underbrush, sweating swordsmen—perhaps even the venerable Miyamoto Musashi, who plays a central role in the next stage of my Japanese journey—yelling and swinging their swords between the trunks, white-clad kung fu masters leaping and kicking about in the canopy.

Uh-oh...should I be following this guy?

This is my favorite picture.

I strolled until I reached a T-junction and figured that was enough. It was hot and still in the bamboo stand and I was sick of being soaked. For the umpteenth time I cursed myself for not doing as the Japanese do and traveling everywhere with a hand towel at my collar to sop at my neck and forehead. I made my way out the same way I'd come, noting the proliferation of gravestones, a Buddhist temple and a host of other foreigners (no doubt here for the same reason I was).

Back out to the main street, and I was finished with my expedition to Arashiyama. I felt quite regretful as I bought myself a soft-serve soybean ice cream cone at a shop window and made my way east to the Keifuku tram station. Western Kyoto was the prettiest and most culturally rich thing that I'd done in Japan thus far, and I was loath to leave. Someday I'll go back and eat there, and drink tea, and buy a lot of crappy souvenirs that will sit on the shelves of my man-cave and collect dust, and then I'll feel like I've explored the place properly.

Some random temple off the main street. Sure wish I'd explored it.

Across town lay the next item on my to-to list: the Golden Pavilion of KINKAKU-JI. Before I tell you about it, though, I want to say a few words about THE KEIFUKU RANDEN TRAM. Trust me, it's worth your while. Tune in tomorrow...

SF reading wish-list

You know the story. No matter how many books you devour in a year, it seems like you wind up with a to-read list that's twice as long. For every book you read, two or three more rise up to take its place. This literary Lernaean Hydra has been plaguing me lately. I don't know what's going on. Maybe it's because I've gotten back into reading for pleasure now that I'm in Korea and working the afternoon shift.  Or it could be that I've decided to take a more proactive approach to my craft. Perhaps I just spend too much time on TV Tropes.

Whatever the reason, I'm going to share with you some of the titles on my reading list. Some of 'em are classics, as usual; and some of them are little-known series which deserve more love. If you're interested in seeing what's out there in the world of SF, both old and new, give the following litany your perusal.

Foundation by Isaac Asimov

Once again demonstrating his genius for creating credible and deeply speculative SF (with historical context), Asimov created the Foundation series, which went on to critical acclaim. The main character, Hari Seldon, is the creator of an esoteric school of mathematics called psychohistory, which draws upon the law of mass action to effectively predict the future on a large scale. Using his research, Seldon foresees the imminent collapse of the Galactic Empire, Seldon creates the "Foundation"—a hidden enclave at the end of the galaxy where all humanity's accumulated knowledge is stored. The series documents Seldon's struggle to establish the Foundation and the attempts by the remnants of humanity to reestablish the Empire according to "the Seldon Plan."

I picked up a few books in the series for a few thousand won from an outgoing English teacher. I figured I'd give it a read...even though Asimov's I, Robot is still sitting unread in a box back in my closet in California!

Airborn by Kenneth Oppel

Matt Cruse is a 15-year-old cabin boy working on the airship Aurora. One day the Aurora encounters a drifting zeppelin with a mysterious old man mumbling about "beautiful creatures," who dies shortly thereafter. A year later, the Aurora is brought down on a tropical island by air pirates, where Matt and the wealthy Kate de Vries discover the truth of the old man's maundering.

This is another series I heard about by clicking around on TV Tropes. I know absolutely nothing about these books, except that Adam Young likes them. I've always been a fan of aviation in general. But something about those tales of weird aircraft and zeppelins and air pirates (particularly in the context of steam punk and alternate history) sets my imagination on fire. The Airborn series has an added twist: strange creatures and scientific discovery. What could be more awesome?

Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve


It's a grim dystopian future. The Earth's crust has been ravaged by a horrific war. Human cities are no longer sedentary, but are mounted upon gigantic treads which roll about the cracked, blasted surface of Planet Earth. More horrific yet, these "Traction Cities" devour each other with huge mechanical jaws to gain precious resources. It's a dog-eat-dog world, and the outlook is pretty bleak. Throw in Earth's ancient technology, a few long-lost superweapons and a load of characters and you have a pretty decent story, if a rather dark one.

I know next to nothing about this series, but can't wait to get into it. Cities rolling about on giant caterpillar treads is something that's fascinated me ever since I saw the film John Carter (based on Edgar Rice Burroughs's Barsoom series). The Mortal Engines series has garnered quite a lot of (positive) critical attention, so at the very least it won't be a boring read, right? 

Midnight at the Well of Souls by Jack L. Chalker

This series edges farther toward fantasy than I'm usually comfortable with. The concept is convoluted, so bear with me. In the first book, we've got your typical space freighter, the Stehekin, captained by one Nathan Brazil. There's a bunch of other people on board, too. They get a distress signal from a planet called Dalgonia, where there's an archaeological team doing some research on the long-dead Markovian race which once lived there. The Markovians were known for building planet-sized computers with which they attempted to fathom the secrets of the universe. Upon arriving, they discovered one of the archaeologists, Elkinos Skander, has murdered the others and disappeared. Tracking him to one of Dalgonia's poles, the crew of the Stehekin are sucked into the Well World, which is divided into "hexes," each hex being subject to different rules, laws, and inhabited by a different race. But here's the catch: entry into one of the hexes means that the person entering is transformed into the race native to that hex. One by one the crew members change into exotic alien forms; in these new bodies they must solve the mystery of the Well World, find out how to stop Skander and turn themselves back into humans. And Nathan Brazil discovers something extraordinary about himself, too.

Weird, right? So weird I feel like I have to read it. I just want to see how the team gets transformed, and what they all morph into. Call it morbid fascination. Chalker himself was quite taken with bodily transformations as well; the rest of the Well World series and quite a few of his other works deal with it. 

In the Balance (Worldwar, Book One) by Harry Turtledove

In a nutshell...

Smack dab in the middle of World War II, Earth is invaded by the Race, a horde of spacefaring reptilian warriors bent on galactic domination. Both the Allies and the Axis unite in the face of mutual destruction and rise up against the invaders.

I used to hate historical fiction. Then I cautiously read the first book of the Destroyermen series (see below), and I thought, "Hey, this isn't that bad." (Heck, I might even go see Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter this weekend.) I'm something of a World War II buff, so combine that with an alien invasion (in which the human race not only holds its own, but actually fights back successfully in unexpected ways), and you've got a recipe for a fangasm.

Crusade (Destroyermen, Book Two) by Taylor Anderson

Into the Storm, the first book in the Destroyermen series, details the origin of Anderson's world and characters. The U.S.S. Walker, an aging World War I-era rustbucket of a destroyer under the command of Captain Matthew Reddy, is on the run from the Japanese battlecruiser Amagi. Pressed into service in the desperate first days of World War II, Walker and a half-dozen other worn-out vessels were tasked with defending the Navy's main base in the Philippines. Overrun by a massive assault, Walker and its sister ship Mahan are now fleeing the pursuing Japanese fleet.

That's when a mysterious storm appears out of nowhere, sucks up Mahan and Walker, and dumps them out...well, somewhere else.

The geographical features are the same. The coastlines look just as they should, and all the islands and reefs are in place. But Captain Reddy and his crew are startled to see dinosaurs roaming about on shore, and monstrous fish and other creatures swimming in the ocean. Traces of human civilization are nowhere to be found. Reddy's amazement deepens when the Walker runs straight into a battle between two completely inhuman races: the Lemurians, lemur-like humanoids who live on giant floating cities, and the Grik, savage reptiles with insatiable bloodlust. It seems humans never evolved in this world. Reddy's intervention in the otherworldly battle makes the Walker allies of the Lemurians and enemies of the Grik...and things only escalate from there.

In Crusade, the second book of the series, Reddy and his crew learn that Walker and Mahan were not the only ships to fall through the storm and into the new world: the Japanese battlecruiser Amagi made it through as well, and now it's in the clawed hands of the vengeful Grik...

Come on, do I need to explain this one? A parallel Earth? Inhuman races vying for supremacy? A savage world full of strange monsters and ancient beasts? Bamboo technology mixing it up with World War II capital ships? Freakin' humanoid dinosaurs versus freakin' humanoid lemurs? BARs and Springfield rifles? This is just too cool. Taylor Anderson is no William Faulkner, but he writes well enough to illustrate his world and populate it with vivid imagery. I got all the books in the series (so far) at What the Book? in Itaewon last month, and I'm going to start working on them as soon as I finish my Jules Verne kick (The Mysterious Island and Around the World in Eighty Days).

In addition to these sci-fi titles, I've got The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley waiting in the wings.

Oh! The joy of reading!

Listening to:

the 8 p.m. epiphany

That I may remain innocent of plagiarism, that title is a pun on a book called The 3 A.M. Epiphany, by Brian Kiteley. Basically it's a writing book. Its pages are littered with unusual but simple exercises (in the form of prompts) designed to work your writing muscles, stretch the literary tendons, push and shove your gray matter into nooks and crannies heretofore uncharted. I rather with I'd brought it with me to Korea, in fact. I've only ever given it perfunctory glances. Bought it new off Amazon and have hardly touched it, even though it looked like a kick in the pants. I intend to rectify that on my return to the U.S.

But in the meantime, I've been having some epiphanies of my own. Namely, how to ensure that my debut novel doesn't suck.

In hindsight, I'm almost glad I've let the novel sit around so long without trying to publish it. It's let me give it a good solid think. Inexorably, I've noticed inadequacies and imperfections. I'm ever so glad I didn't rush into publication and let those strident shortcomings slip under the radar. I'd like this dang thing to be perfect.

So, in idly thinking about what would make the book better—I've gotten to the point where the book is constantly simmering away on the back burner, and I can contemplate it and critique it almost subconsciously—I came to a realization. The book is boring. Flat. Dull. Thanks to my last rewrite, completed shortly before I left for Korea (late 2011 or something), the manuscript is no longer do disgustingly puerile. But it's still missing something. Oomph, I guess you'd call it. There's nothing in it that would hold interest. It's still somewhat shallower than I'd like. I must have subconsciously grasped this, and the matter must have been turning itself over in my head subliminally for months, ethereal and intangible, like the ghost of a rotisserie chicken.

Because, at 8 p.m. yesterday evening, I figured out what was wrong, and how to fix it. Was the book dull? Okay, spice things up a bit. I didn't have to think long about how to accomplish this. I'd bring in some of the characters I was saving for the sequels.

I cracked open my laptop during one of my free periods at work, and commenced a staff meeting with myself. These are the stenographer's notes:

Okay. How to integrate [Unnamed Major Characters #1, #2 and #3] into the story I've already got?

Excellent question. Are we including their backstories as well?

Whoof, I hadn't even thought about it. Seems logical to include Number One's cover story, and of course most of Number Two's tragic history, excluding the part she doesn't know about (that she's actually from the other universe). As for Number Three's...

I'm thinking we'd best leave his (and Number One's) for later. Drama bombs, good sir, drama bombs. Like Dresden in '44. Or was it '45?

No matter. Just enough to set up character. Now, are we confident that we've included enough? Are [the three aforementioned characters] going to be enough to sustain this story properly? Or are they too much? Character overload, so to speak?

Well, as Spartan as this story is right now (a protagonist, a deuteragonist, two antagonists, a few slavering beasts and and a boatload of war-crazed tribesmen), a few vivid characters couldn't hurt. They'd really help flesh it out.

We can at least give it a shot. If it doesn't work, we'll know it.

Glad we got that cleared up. Now the question is...how now, brown cow?

Now let's see...I'm thinking of pulling in some of the story elements from what I had planned for later books. Enrichening the story.

Is "enrichening" actually a word?

It is now. So. The story. We were originally planning the setting (after the cataclysm) in a fairly pastoral setting, with a few Babylonian and Akkadian cities scattered around, right? And the Babylonians and Akkadians running amok?

That sounds about right, yes. And our heroes caught up in the middle of it.

I should have listened to my gut from the beginning. That setting always struck me as somewhat...pedestrian. Bland. Unexciting. Static.

No need for reproaches, friend. What's happened has happened. Just be glad you're fixing it before you publish it. So, we need to spice up the setting a bit?

Right. Instead of leaving the place a wilderness, I think I'm going to make the landscape more recognizable. Really pull the audience into the story. Make them realize just what this story's about, and what actually happened during the apocalypse.

That sounds sound.

So...let's see here. What were the milestone civilizations after Mesopotamia? The Egyptians, right?

Yeah, them. And the Greeks, and the Romans, and the Arabs, the Carthaginians, and all the barbarian tribes up in Europe and whatnot.

Are the Etruscans in there somewhere?

Who the hell were the Etruscans?

No idea. Anyway, I think that's enough to go on. The chronological order of things isn't going to matter much, given the context of the story. Nor, really, will historical accuracy. We can play with this timeline as much as we like.

It's nice when you leave yourself an out like that, isn't it? Perhaps you were cut out to be a sci-fi writer after all. If you can learn to ignore the thunderous sound of Isaac Asimov spinning in his grave, that is.

It's getting easier by the day. All right, so we've got historical context taken care of. But I want to be sure of something. Whenever people write alternate histories, or even history-based science fiction (A.E. van Vogt was a whiz at it) there's a certain risk involved. I'm talking about clichés.

What, you mean like, whenever people write about savage backward Bronze Age cultures, or the Roman Empire, or some fictitious blend of the two, there's always some big fight scene in the grand arena? Against wild beasts and monstrous sword-wielding gladiators?

Yeah, that. Happens all the time. Star Wars (like, two or three times); John Carter; Riverworld; Gladiator (I suppose that was a given, though); and a whole bunch of other historical and sci-fi stuff. It's a lead-pipe cinch. Whenever you talk about ancient cultures, real or imagined, some mention of The Games always pops up.

Sure does. You want to avoid that?

Yes. I want to avoid it. And somehow, avoid it WITHOUT avoiding it.

Come again?

I would like to work a nice big gladiatorial fight scene in there. Preferably with the hand of the love interest at stake.

Okay. We can do it. We just have to make it new and fresh. Or make it SEEM new and fresh.

At that moment, unfortunately, I noticed that I had three minutes to get ready for my next lesson. I hastily shut down the computer, snatched my textbooks and lesson plan, and hoofed it to class.

I think I got enough done. I was starting to digress, anyway. I didn't make any concrete steps toward figuring out where I was going to spread my hands and divide the plot—like Moses parting the Red Sea—and stick all this extra stuff in, but I've got all night to think about that. And tomorrow night. And possibly the three free periods I've got on Wednesday, too.

I'm tremendously excited. My manuscript, as it stands now, is a mere 58,000 words or so. That makes it pretty short for a novel. I'm not one to subscribe to the whole "longer is better" school of authorship which Douglas Adams poked fun at in So Long and Thanks for All the Fish, but I am rather pleased that this new material will double (perhaps triple) the overall length of this work. Makes it seem a little more legit, you know?

But beyond that, I'm excited to see the changes this will wreak on my manuscript. I think it'll really jazz it up. It'll transmute from bland sterility into explosive vivaciousness. It'll be punchy, hard-hitting, evocative, emotional, and just plain ol' fun. I'm looking forward to ushering it into that golden light.

I'll let you know how it all goes. And about my plans to publish it. I think I might be ready to try putting on the Kindle™...

the geumhaeng sardine can

                                                                                                                                                                            courtesy of Wikipedia

...being an account of the best weekend in Korea so far (this time around).

Just so you're not scratching your heads for the entire post, geumhaeng (pronounced "GOOM-hayng") is the Korean word for "express." Here it applies to the express subway train on Line 1 of the Seoul subway system.

Now, I don't know if you've ever been on a metropolitan subway train when it's packed to the gills, but it ain't a pleasant experience. I haven't any pictures to show you; even if I'd had my camera with me I couldn't have pried it out of my pocket and raised it to the proper height to capture an image. Yes, quarters were that close. My bottom half was bumping uglies with a family of three Korean women, and my top half was bent over towards a seated middle-aged Korean man (thankfully asleep). I had my hands clamped on the rail of the baggage rack, and my sweaty armpits were stuck in the faces of two other unfortunate souls. The fist of a businessman, wrapped around a hand grip, kept tapping me in the back of the skull. This was how we rode for 30 minutes, in a metal sardine can, all the way from Yongsan (in central Seoul) to my stop at Songnae, in western Bucheon.

It was my first experience on a train as crowded as that one. It was enlightening, even I did feel somewhat, ah, violated. Those Koreans can be vicious. At the second stop they all just piled on, pushing and shoving and shoulder-checking the people ahead of them until every last one of them had squeezed aboard. Like a large boulder protruding from a roiling ocean, I stood resolute, refusing to budge for these rude people. I didn't care if I was flouting the unspoken traditions of my host country. I was making a stand. But then the Korean ladies wound up practically kissing my chest, and I felt obliged to move back and shift my feet for their purity's sake. There was a silver lining to the situation, however. As we burst through the train doors like fizz from a shaken soda can, a young Korean man in glasses and a gray hoodie began to talk to me. He asked where I was from, and I said California. He said "Oh! I went to Las Vegas last year." I told him that place was very fun, thanked him sincerely for speaking with me, and then plonked my outer layers of clothing down on a bench and began to wrestle my way back into them as the chill evening breeze swept the platform.

But why am I starting with the geumhaeng? I should tell you about the whole weekend, beginning to end.

I had originally intended to go into Itaewon last weekend. Due to the mix-up with my finances (I didn't have the code number I needed to access my account), I was still penniless. So I had to wait until this weekend to foray into greater Seoul on my own.

Before that, though, there was a movie I wanted to see.



Based on a series of books by Edgar Rice Burroughs (the same guy who dreamed up a heroic musclebound jungle-dweller called Tarzan), John Carter concerns a disillusioned Civil War veteran mysteriously transported to Mars. As it turns out, Mars (known as Barsoom) is not a lifeless rock as most astronomers imagine, but a vibrant world inhabited by no less than six or seven races of sentient beings...who unfortunately are all at war with one another. Carter, being from a heavier, denser planet than Mars, gradually discovers that he has superhuman strength and the ability to jump great distances. After a series of skirmishes in which his impressive battle prowess is revealed, Carter finds himself embroiled in the war between the two powerful Martian kingdoms, one of which is backed by a group of mysterious immortal beings called the Therns, who have rather sinister plans for Mars...and Earth!

In spite of the rather scathing reviews which John Carter has received, I liked it. I thought Disney treated it right. They didn't overdo it, overplay their hand, or hype it like some big blockbuster. They just let it be what it was supposed to be, a sci-fi/sword-and-sorcery romp. And, speaking of sword-and-sorcery, I thought the tone of the movie came across really well: the epic alien setting, the warring kingdoms, the fish-out-of-water protagonist (but, instead of being at a disadvantage, Carter is actually empowered by his status as an Earth-man; quite refreshing). The film's got something for everyone. Drama, fight scenes, romance, fight scenes, mystery, fight scenes, and, oh yes...did I mention fight scenes?

One of the criticisms being bandied about by naysayers was that the film was too long. Fie on them, I say. The fact that the movie was long gave them time to put everything that was in the first book of Burroughs's Barsoom series (A Princess of Mars, written in 1917) into the film. Stuff's been cut out and added, obviously; but it doesn't detract from the overall quality of the work. Making the film longer also allowed for more fight scenes to be put in without stacking them end-to-end like cord-wood. Seriously, John Carter fights everybody in this film, be they sentient Martians or wild beasts. But it's not mindless violence. It's actually a plot point: Carter is a veteran who lost his family in the American Civil War, and has been trying to avoid fighting anyone or anything ever since. But he finds himself inexorably drawn into the Barsoomian conflict by chance, by fate, by the charms of a beautiful princess...and eventually by choice. Carter's transition from burnt-out cynic to happy-to-be-alive-again romantic is a joy to observe.

Okay, the review's gone on long enough. Now for the rest of the weekend. Simply put, I caught the subway to Itaewon, went to that English-language bookstore I keep talking about (What the Book?), picked up some new reading material, and returned to Bucheon on the geumhaeng.

I spent Saturday evening in a quiet pub a couple of blocks from my apartment, shooting pool and drinking green beer with Jon and Andy (from work). We won a game of cutthroat apiece, and talked of life, the universe and everything. And execrated Justin Bieber. I think. 

On Sunday the expatriate boys and I went to the park to play basketball. We'd been there an hour or two when we noticed, on the other side of the court, a group of Korean middle schoolers, some of whom we recognized as our own students at Avalon.  

So of course, we just had to challenge them to a game.

Five-on-five. Play to 15 points. Full-court. Substitutions allowed. Those were the terms of the duel. There was much more at stake than mere manly pride. If we lost, we would lose face. We could not rightfully expect our students to respect us in the classroom if they beat us hollow on the court. We had to make a good show of this. Win, or at least go down swinging.

We lost track of the score after five minutes.

It was intense. Some of those Korean kids were fast. Jon and I, center and guard respectively, huffed and puffed as we tried to keep up. Dan, a whiz at basketball, and Andy, light on his feet and modest about his mad skillz, kept us afloat. Jon was a rock on defense and showed us some moves as he moved the ball up the court, scoring plenty of points of his own. Martin and Peter were light on their feet and wizards (so to speak) at penetrating the enemy defense. Woe betide us if our foe caught the rebound and passed to the point guard, however. He'd move that ball up the side of the court, charge into the goal and make a jump shot worth writing home about.

By the end, we were sweaty, tired, and winded, but our bodies were singing with endorphins and camaraderie. We all parted on good terms and went our separate ways.

I had the feeling, the whole while, that this would become one of those golden memories I would derive many hours of pleasure from reflecting upon in my declining years.

And that was my weekend. Back to the grind...

let the countdown begin!

Technically it's already begun—you've probably noticed that cute little widget over on the right. However, the gears have finally meshed. Two days ago I received my passport back from the Korean Consulate General in Los Angeles, stamped with a shiny new E-2 work visa classifying me as a "foreign instructor," and guaranteeing me a one-year sojourn. This was the last piece of paperwork that I needed. I can flash this little honey in the faces of the Korean immigration officials, waltz through customs, and enter South Korea as a legal immigrant. All of my ducks are in a row. I could leave tomorrow if they wanted me.

But they want me on February 7. After a little jockeying, some back-and-forth nonsense, a glut of vacillation and a smidgen of misinformation, the date of my departure was finalized. I am, needless to say, tremendously excited. The contents of my room (stuffed into way too many heavy cardboard boxes) are safely tucked away in a storage unit in town. My suitcases are half-packed, and all the equipment I'm bringing with me has been inventoried and set aside. Decks of cards (three normal decks and a pinochle set); my grooming kit; shoeshine supplies; hat brushes; journals and notebooks; battery chargers; plug adapters; packs of gum; medicines and taco seasoning; and, perhaps most important of all, books. I've got all my cocktail recipe books with me, and some stuff about card games, and my Worst Case Scenario: Travel guide.

And then are the works of fiction I've selected. Sapsucker that I am, I neglected to choose these volumes before packing up my personal library, so I had to go back through the boxes and mine these buggers out of the tenebrous depths.

They are:

• The Great Shark Hunt by Hunter S. Thompson
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
• Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
• Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
• Skeletons on the Zahara by Dean King, which I'm reading now.

I've read Heart of Darkness before, but that was years ago, in school, and I didn't pay it much attention because I was too busy trying to avoid having my upper body dunked into a trash can. Like Moby-Dick, I have attempted to read Frankenstein repeatedly, but always petered out near the end of the first chapter. The Great Shark Hunt (also known as The Gonzo Papers, Volume One) is Thompson's true account of his adventures as a drug-addled gonzo journalist in a country turned upside-down by chemicals, counterculture, rock 'n' roll, political corruption, and war. (The Sixties, in other words.) Skeletons on the Zahara is likewise nonfiction: a tale of woe, desperation, suffering and privation regarding the crew of the American brig Commerce, shipwrecked off the coast of West Africa in 1814 and sold into slavery by Saharan nomads.  It's pretty good so far. Should be a good read on the plane, if I don't finish it before that.

Speaking of books, I am so far behind on my book reviews that it ain't even funny. Okay, maybe it is a bit funny. But that's beside the point. I'll spare you a long, dull, wordy series of reviews that you undoubtedly wouldn't have the patience to read. Instead, I'll review each book in one sentence:

• Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein: A breathlessly suspenseful epic and yet also a sinewy and hard-lined analysis of patriotism, military service, war, and human conflict, in the guise of a rollicking good science fiction tale about well-trained space soldiers in powered armor battling hideous alien bugs. 9/10
• Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer: Journalist and inveterate traveler Krakauer details and examines the life, motivations, adventures and ultimate downfall of the ill-fated super-tramp Christopher McCandless. 9/10
• Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson: An excoriating satire of drug culture, chemically-enhanced ramblings, and late 20th-century vice in the world's most sinful city—sportswriter Raoul Duke and his Samoan lawyer, Dr. Gonzo, speed off to Las Vegas in a giant red convertible and a trunk full of drugs to cover a motorcycle race. 8/10
• Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin: A powerful, gut-wrenching, no-holds-barred peek into the lives of black folks in the American South in 1959...seen through the eyes of white novelist Griffin himself, who darkened his skin artificially and set off to the South to find out the truth about the "Negro Problem." The truth is viscerally shocking. 7/10

There. Now you know what I've been reading. Incidentally, I've never read any of these books before. I don't know what took me so long to get around to Starship Troopers. Perhaps it was the awful movie adaptation. Thankfully I set my prejudice aside and read the book, which, as I understand, is required reading at West Point, and a great favorite among the 75th Ranger Battalion (the guys who fought through hell in Mogadishu in 1993). Now if only Barack Obama and the Democratic Party would read it...[sigh]...

And finally, since I will become an immigrant (emigrant?) in ten days, I'll leave you with a little song. Yes, yes, I know. I should be using "The Final Countdown" or something, but I hate that song. So take it away, Zep.

if I had $300,000,000

I don't like television. As a general rule, I find it flabby, unwholesome, dissatisfying, crude, and pointless.

So when I tell you that my favorite television show is Firefly, you should understand that the show itself is none of those things. It is, in fact, pure awesomeness incarnate.

Tragically, it was canceled after a measly 14 episodes had been filmed, due to Executive Meddling. More's the pity.

In an interview, Firefly's male lead Nathan Fillion stated that, if he had $300 million on hand, he would buy the rights to the show, and probably continue it, free of interference from the powers-that-be.

That got me thinking. What would I do if I had $300 million?

I'll tell you what I'd do. I'd start up my own movie studio.

On-Target Productions, I'd call it. Or maybe Faithful Studios. Something to convey my sententious but entirely truthful belief that Hollywood is incapable of producing a piece of cinema which is in any way faithful to the source material, and that my studio, by virtue of its firm grounding in literary value (and complete disregard for monetary gain), is.

Anyway, the name isn't important. What's important is that I'd outfit this studio with the best equipment my limited budget could buy, hire the most hardworking personnel I could find, write a bunch of screenplays (the way I like 'em), and make some movies that are entirely accurate and complete interpretations of the media upon which they're based.

I mean that quite literally. Entirely accurate and complete. No chopping or dissecting or mulching being done here; if I mean to make a movie out of a book, I'm using the whole goddamn book: every scene, every line of dialogue, every sentence if needs be. There'll be no "lost characters" like Tom Bombadil from The Lord of the Rings or Peeves the Poltergeist from Harry Potter. And there'll be none of this cutting-out-minor-scenes-because-they-don't-advance-the-action-fast-enough-and-we-can-totally-skip-those-scenes-anyway-because-all-they-do-is-reveal-minor-nuances-of-character-that-we-can-gloss-over-in-the-third-act malarkey. These are going to be faithful interpretations, like I said. That means every little scene, no matter how insignificant a two-bit brain-dead Hollywood screenwriter might consider it, will be reproduced in exact facsimile. No exceptions.

Having my own studio (and not giving a fig whether my productions are marketable, or even if they will be marketed) will give me room to breathe. I don't have to worry about length, or mass appeal, or tone, or censorship, or any of that other crap that the Gilded Mulcher has to worry about in order to sell movie tickets. I can reproduce these great source works as I see fit, with complete creative control, and revel in the realness and truthfulness of the results. I can bring my imagination to life for myself and a few other acolytes to enjoy. Everyone else can go spit.

I'm not saying these films will be unwatchably violent, sexy, or disgusting. There's practically no sex in any of the works I have in mind to adapt. And the violence won't be worse than anything you'd see in a typical action flick. As for the darker, scarier stories...well, it all depends on what you think might blast your soul from your body with cosmic horror.

                                                                                         by Pete Amachree

And mind you, I won't object if a few independent-minded cinemas agree to pick up my works and release them at a few small drive-ins and dollar theaters. Those are the kind of folks I'd want watching my films anyway, not the bigwigs from Hollywood and Cannes.

But that's beside the point! Aren't you curious to know which books and stories I will be adapting for the screen? 

I thought you'd be. I have some very specific ideas on that score. They include, but are not limited to...

• Several tales from Robert E. Howard's Conan the Cimmerian mythos. If you haven't read any of Howard's original Conan tales, it's time you started. Howard's barbarian makes Arnold Schwarzenegger look like a pantywaist choirboy. The stories are gritty, bloody, sweaty, and hard-boiled, bursting with darkness, danger, hideous evil, swashbuckling adventure and testosterone. Some of the stories I have in mind are Beyond the Black River, The Tower of the Elephant, Iron Shadows on the Moon, and Red Nails...as well as a weird Western tale, unrelated to Conan, The Horror from the Mound.
• Selected works of H.P. Lovecraft, including At the Mountains of Madness, The Thing on the Doorstep, The Shunned House, The Haunter of the Dark, The Shadow Out of Time, The Whisperer in Darkness, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, and The Dunwich Horror. It'll be interesting to see if Lovecraft's works translate well onto the screen. A lot of the horror and suspense in his stories is conveyed through description and inarticulate mentality, not through dialogue or action. Many of the horrific implications and disgusting monsters are best left to the realms of the imagination, too, rather than put up on a screen in CG and pixels. Still, I'd be willing to give it a shot.
• Most of H.G. Wells's full-length works, including The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds, and The Island of Dr. Moreau. Most have been made into films already, but none of them have been done correctly. That's not my opinion, that's fact. I'll treat 'em right if no one else will.
• Many of Jules Verne's classic tales, like Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, and Around the World in Eighty Days. Can you imagine what giant squids, raft-rides through lava tubes, and thrilling heroics on speeding steam trains would look like on a humongous theater screen? It gives me the chills!
• Dozens of science fiction novels and short stories by writers such as Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, A.E. van Vogt, Arthur C. Clarke, C.M. Kornbluth, L. Sprague de Camp, Lester del Rey, and Fritz Leiber. Here are a few I've got in mind.
• The Wendigo by Algernon Blackwood
• The Novel of the Black Seal by Arthur Machen
• The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov
• Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein (a respectful interpretation); also The Roads Must Roll and Universe
• The Empire of the Atom, The Wizard of Linn, The Weapon Shops of Isher, and Black Destroyer by A.E. van Vogt
• The Hammer of God by Arthur C. Clarke
• The Big Front Yard by Clifford D. Simak
• Baby Is Three by Theodore Sturgeon

• A live-action film adaptation of the superb and underrated Hanna-Barbera cartoon Thundarr the Barbarian. A fur-clad warrior with a magic sword wanders the post-apocalyptic Earth in the year 3999, after a rogue planet cast human civilization in ruin. In his ongoing quest to save the scrawny, ragged survivors from evil wizards, mutants and strange monsters (many of which are holdovers from the 20th century), Thundarr is aided by the beautiful Princess Ariel, a sorceress, and a huge, furry Mok named Ookla. I'm thinking some big-budget disaster scenes and a lot of Scenery Gorn. 
• Some of the video and computer games I've played have definite potential, such as Crimson Skies. Maybe if I'm in a really fun-loving and goofy mood I'll do Serious Sam.
• Yes, I know I've railed against remakes on this here blog. But I can't help it. I'd redo a few of the old stop-motion monster flicks, not because I think CG would make them better (certainly not; Ray Harryhausen has no equal and never will), but simply because I'm curious to see what they'd look like with a technological makeover. Just curious, is all. I can't help but wonder what a reboot of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, The Valley of Gwangi, Them!, Jason and the Argonauts, and The Golden Voyage of Sinbad would be like. Specifically, the monsters. You know how much I like monsters.  

And that's it. I think it'd be a lot of fun. I've always wanted to try my hand at screenwriting. And I'll bet I could hire an assistant until I got good at it. Then I'd just go to town. My studio would crank out these films, and they'd go for limited theatrical release or direct-to-DVD, and whoever was interested in real, faithful, true adaptations of good books and cartoons and movies could buy 'em and watch 'em. That's all I want. That's what I'd do with $300,000,000. Maybe a few bucks to charity here and there, but for the most part I'd launch my vendetta against  Hollywood and revel in unmitigated artistic license.

What would you do with $300,000,000? Buy a monkey?