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    Multimedia Production Classes!

    • Want to learn photography? How about podcasting? Want to learn how to properly produce a podcast in the first place? Or bring your blogging to the next level?

      Announcing mid-term and NEW signups for the Multimedia Production classes! The course is 8 weeks, divided between photography in the first half and multimedia in the second. The classes are 3-hour seminars, once per week, mostly conducted in my studio but with a couple spent out in the field.

      My studio has an 80-inch projection screen fed by a superfast Mac, as well as a secure wireless Internet connection, and 5.1 Dolby Digital/DTS surround sound in order to make group work truly professonal.

      Interested? Send me an email from the link at the top of this menu.

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    • Support Street Photography!

      Want to keep the "real" Korea experience with you always? Prints of any documentary/art photo I have taken on this site are 175,000 KRW ($175 USD), signed, numbered, and framed. For the print only, you need only pay 125,000 KRW ($125 USD) for the same without the frame. Please contact me directly via email for orders.

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    April 01, 2008

    A Sad Day Has Come

    This is the last time I will post here. My time as the "Metropolitician" is up.

    I've realized a lot of things over the last week or so, since falling for a certain young lady of a more conservative persuasion, who has quite literally rocked my world. I realize that a lot of the liberal ideas I had formerly and formally adhered to were largely misconstrued notions I had held, distortions of ideological ramifications that simply had no precedence in either established fact, dilapidated fiction, or even (and not either) the demonstrated dialectics of most people's dystopic desires.

    In short, a new kind of love has made me into a harder, more turgid man.

    No longer will I carry the torch for a a deluded liberalism, nor be the voice for lefty illiberality. What I truly hanker for is a haughty helping of a hunk of cheese that isn't defined in terms of a mere neo-Freudian kitsch, but the kind of cheese one can count on, like money in the bank; indeed, one needs sustenance so solid and reliable one can literally stick it in a pipe and smoke it.

    So I can no longer continue to write here, after having fallen for someone like the one who has learned to call me "oppa." Such is an experience I never thought I could have had, either as a black man, or a Star Trek fan, and her highly-developed sense of what I have previously called here mere "fetishized femininity" has caused in me an emotional rise that is quite epic in its tense and torpedo-like tautology. Indeed, they didn't call Moby a "Dick" for nothing, as they say. Unlike the proverbial Ahab, my little lady has actually caught her whale.

    When wondering why I have decided to forgo any further forays into formalism and endorse not Barack "Aladdin" Obama, but rather John McCain, the answer becomes perfectly obvious, does it not?

    When you ask yourselves these questions, as you struggle for the answers, yet still can't bring yourself to face the truth, realize that Tom Cruise once said, quite poignantly, that the "truth could not be handled" and that in a similar situation, Al Pacino pointed a finger and said that the entire Supreme Court was indeed, very much "out of order."

    In the same way, I was once out of love, and was so lost without her, but believe you me -- I now realize that it's hip to be square. Or did not Huey Lewis not give you that news?

    So, it is with heavy hands that I make my last entry here, since the Metropolitician that was me has completely and totally ceased to be he.

    For Pak Geun-hye's youngest daughter knows how to hit me where it counts, and to not just do that to me once, but likes to hit me, baby one more time, all the time, if you catch my meaning, number one Negaroni! See, I don't shrink away from saying, loudly and proudly, what needs to be said. And if you didn't get it from the passage above, you need a double dose of dis doubletalk. April mothafuckin' fool's, bitches!

    Word to your mother, yo!

    March 04, 2008

    Korea Way Ahead, Again!

    When it comes to beauty tips and tricks, where but Korea do women know their stuff way before it hits big in other places? We got yer pig trotters, Telegraph!



    Ah, we miss you, Susan.

    January 23, 2008

    I Got YouTubed!

    Well, YouTube got rolled out today, I got the welcome video done, and got to meet Funtwo, the Pachabel Canon guitar master of the universe, along with the Free Hugs Korea guy, both of whom were very cool.

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    I'm still reeling from the fact that they invited me out in the first place – but the guy who picked me out of the bunch did say that he thought this kind of media should be made, something that represents Korea and/or the foreign community in the particular way he thinks is positive, I surmised from our conversation. Surely it wasn't because of my hit counts: Funtwo the guitar master is on 35,000,000, while I was happy to see a SeoulGlow episode go over 10,000.

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    And if the authenticity of his guitar playing is even still in question, I saw him play in person and he hit the same notes with ease live, just like in the video. Kid's good.

    But back to SeoulGlow – despite my feelings of hit count inadequacy, I was flattered and impressed that someone's paying attention to the work I've been doing, and got some real motivation to get back on the video production track and hook up all these strands of new media I've been experimenting in. Just hard to do alone, you know?

    Overall, the YouTube people ran a tight press conference, as did their PR firm, Incomm-Brodeur. There are presently two SeoulGlow episodes on the front page of YouTube Korea, and I hope this will bring the show more to the attention of the Korean market.

    SeoulGlow #9 - Welcome, YouTube Korea!

    Well, I just attended and participated in the YouTube Korea press conference – so you've probably read in the news that YouTube Korea has officially opened its doors in Korea and the site gone live.

    YT Korea asked me (SeoulGlow) to make a welcome video, which you see above. I had little time to do it, but went with something that felt right, like a real greeting. Perhaps not too creative, but given my time schedule, surprising that I even pulled this much off.

    With the attention that getting featured on YT Korea's front page will bring, it's time to get back to getting SeoulGlow back online. Next up is the final part of the Korean astronaut series, as well as new episodes. I've already gotten as many views on the Superkids episode TODAY as watched it since months ago. So we're going to have more viewers.

    Anyone out there who'd like to help with subtitling, editing, or producing episodes, please get in touch at my email address at the top right of the page.

    Let's get SeoulGlow going again! To do that, I need help. Care to join the team?

    November 16, 2007

    College Entrance Exam's Over!

    Again. And congratulations to the kids across the nation who lost sleep, weight, and even blood to prepare for the test, then survive taking the thing yesterday. Here's an old SeoulGlow episode that I think sums it up best.

    July 13, 2007

    SeoulGlow #8 - Goodbye, Teacher

    Join special guest Melissa Yasinow, a fellow Fulbright English Teaching Assistant (ETA) who is completing her year in Naju – her last day at school is today – and the note that she enlisted my technical help to make. The content and love is all hers, since I'm just working the camera this time.

    While Melissa wanted to make a simple note to her school, I thought it might be a good opportunity to pose the question of why we don't see any foreigners like her in the Korean media, which seems to be bending as far as possible backwards to show the worst possible stereotypes of foreigners in the media.

    That said, enjoy one American woman's tribute to a positive experience that has changed her life, and I'm sure she has touched the lives of her students, teachers, and friends as well.

    June 01, 2007

    Susan Eats MORE Jokbal!

    Finally! The saga is complete. And the ending is brutal.

    Susan finally finishes the jokbal she started in the previous episode. And no, she has not been continuously eating for weeks. And judging from the reactions to the first part of this feeding frenzy, I feel it my duty to warn you: don't watch this unless you have reasonable access to a dead pig of some type.

    I'm going to go find some jokbal for lunch. Editing this stuff, as you can imagine, has been killing me.

    May 15, 2007

    Happy Teachers' Day!

    And in celebration of that, we have a video made by "Notorious Joe" McPherson and his super group of special kids, whom he teaches in his school full of children with special powers.

    The X-Men, you say?

    Nay!

    It's the "Clash of the Superkids" and the fight is ON, baby!

    I think the budget and special effects in this podcast looks about like what they spent in X-Men 3. Ouch for them, good for Joe and the kids!

    Now, that's entertainment!

    March 30, 2007

    SeoulGlow #6 - Susan Eats Jokbal!

    Finally! In this 6th episode of SeoulGlow, Susan treats us to her second installment of "Seoul Food," in which she eats jokbal naked. Ahem. Er, umm, perhaps it's better to say she eats naked jokbal, that being without the sauce and, erm...condiments.

    Umm, I think I'm digging a hole here. Help? Anyway, we warn our viewers, however -- if you watch this video without reasonable access to large amounts of freshly cut pork, you may end up hurting someone close to you. Do NOT watch on an empty stomach. Unless you want to start knawing on the flesh of other sentient beings, of course, since pigs and humans are such genetically close cousins.

    I apologize for the spotty releases of our SeoulGlow video podcasts, but I am beholden to being "lost in translation" when it comes to the subtitling stage, especially when going from English to Korean. We need interns! And we're paying!

    If you have any Korean friends who are looking for something, just send them over to this link (I put together a Korean description as well) and let them get in touch.

    Also, for the Korean speakers out there who might want to practice their English and listening comprehension, we've provided the transcript (thanks, Dylan!) for their use, available after the jump.

    And don't forget to let your Seooooooooul glow!

    Continue reading "SeoulGlow #6 - Susan Eats Jokbal!" »

    March 14, 2007

    SeoulGlow #5 – The Art of Daechuri

    Sorry for the lull last week – the video project had taken a bit of a toll. But I'm getting back into the swing of things, have a new monitor to stop the headaches, and have our first user submission for you here, done by Bum Lee, the creator of the SeoulGlow animation intro, no less. The final part of the "Dinner with Soyeon" series will be up in the near future, by the way. From Bum:

    "The farming village of Daechuri is being evicted by the Korean government for the expansion of a nearby U.S. military base. For several years, the villagers and activists have resisted the forceful eviction, but the residents of Daechuri recently signed an agreement with the government to leave their village by the end of March.



    I visited Daechuri on Saturday March 3. Behind the perimeter of fences guarded by police, many of the homes had been demolished and the unharvested fields were trenched off with barbed wire. But there was art everywhere amidst the ruin – murals, sculptures, junk art, and a gallery filled with paintings. The villagers held their nightly candlelight vigil in a hall surrounded by painted portraits, and in the evening they sang songs around a bonfire.
    This video is a tribute to the art of Daechuri."

    "Why Be Critical?"

    • Before you say this site is "anti-Korean" or bashing Korea – read this: "Why Be Critical?" Chances are, if you're simply angry because I am a social critic in Korea but not actually Korean, see if your argument isn't just a kneejerk response that follows these patterns.

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