Summer is Wretched

Whoever invented humidity should be shot.

That is all.

Back to your knitting.

I have a problem

I like colored pens. I think I like them a little too much. Gels are glorious, ballpoints are beautiful, and felt-tips are freaking fantastic.

You think you can stop at one, you know, just for color coding your grading. Maybe one color just for mistakes with articles? Suddenly it's the second time in a week, and you find yourself powering through the late-night Timeworld crowds, hearing the soft click of the 0.3mm turquoise and the  0.25mm magenta burning a hole in your pocket. Finally you get home, sit down, get out the paraphernalia, and look for the right place to poke. There: a wrongly capitalized letter in the second sentence. You unleash the tide of fuchsia judgment and...

Ahhh.

It's a terrible affliction.

Summer Intensive in Every Way

The first way I mean that is the freaking ridiculous heat and humidity combo Daejeon has going on currently. I remember saying I had much more specific requirements for places that insist on including "South" in their monikers, and Korea has accepted my challenge with vengeance. Every day is in the mid-nineties with humidity in the same range. It's brutal. I am planning to move to Antarctica.

The second way I mean that is in the scheduling. Summer intensive period brings with it two more hour-long classes per day. It is a lot of children. They are bored. There is nothing more dangerous, Internet, than bored children. They threaten my sanity daily. On the bright side, I now get out of work at 9:40 p.m. instead of 10:40, so the night is younger when I get out, more like a sprightly 35 than wheezy 49. Of course, on Wednesdays, when I teach 7 classes, six of them in a row, I feel closer to the 49... Let's call it a draw.

The third way I mean that (originally, I was only going to write two, but today has changed my mind) is in annoyance. Avalon just told us that it will be fiscally unable to pay us our full salaries on payday. We will receive half when we are supposed to (the 5th) and the rest of it 10 days later. Supposedly. The exact words were, when pressed, "it's not a guarantee." Ah well, another day, another... 50¢

All that being the case, it is not a terrible thing to be me. Choir has started back up, which makes me feel like my life has resumed from the dull sluggery of vacation. It's always nice to be returning to a company, where you feel like you know people and have a social place to come home to. My job sometimes does not feel as real to me as the time I spend schlepping to and from Seoul. You know when you take a shower, and there's one part of you that you have to wash in order to feel clean? For me, it's my hair. I can't feel clean, even if I've taken a CDC-approved decon shower everywhere else, if my hair's not washed. In that same - totally irrational, I know - way, I don't feel like I'm really back into the swing of my life without choir.

It's nice to be back (even if "back" means torrents of sweat and hours of cursing the concept of adolescence).

Virtual Room of Requirement

Internet, I require a micro-pig. You know, whenever you have a minute. I will take this model in whatever color you have available.

A moment of linguistic alchemy

From one of my students, whose English name is (no kidding) Obama, to his friend John:

"Put a sock in your pie hole!"

John is the one on the upper left with the enormous hair, Obama has the glasses.

Vacation Cetera

Performance Weekend

I. Pirates, catch me please!
   Great consternation and woe.
   Gravity wins. Ow.

Food

I. Mom doesn't eat meat
   Spicy is not her fav'rite.
   "Why'd she come?" asks G.

II. Mom likes daikon lots
    I think it's disgusting stuff.
    Where's the lasagna?

III. No meat, no spice Mom
    Finds Korean food she likes:
    Dulsut bibimbap!

IV. You want the fish grilled?
     (Many looks of confusion)
     Result: delicious.

V. Special white, house white
    Why, mysterious difference?
    More cc's: "special"


The Hotel

I. Mom thinks whispering-
   Conspiratorially-
   Elevators, sly.

II. Seventh floor sauna
    Naked ladies everywhere
    Shame I'm no straight man.

IIa. Twenty-five won scrub
      Many layers of skin, then -
      Oh, look how we glow!

Busan Market

I. Swimming eels in tubs
    Kitschy Buddhas wave smugly.
    Busan Market: grand.

II. Mung bean pancakes, hot.
    Flowered shoes for just ten bucks.
    Good day for shopping.

III. Brown dirt becomes art:
      Pots, tiles, vases, plates and bowls.
      Gracious potter smiles.

Busan in General

I. Busan transfer tune
    Cheerfully whistles to say,
    "Disembark, dingbat!"

II. Mom's lost her ticket
    Exasperated, I sigh.
    Hello, role reversal.

III. TV everywhere,
      Not Mom's very favorite.
      She desires silence.

IV (The World Cup):
    Shouting Korea
    They don't kid about the name.
    Red Devils have won!

Weather

I. Blue sky? Hard to tell.
   Raining for so very long,
   Harder to believe.


From Mom, about her own adventures (I will try to get her own account of this day and post it later, which may help explain some of the following. Know that we both found this place on a map and in Mom's guidebook, but the locals had no freaking idea this entire temple thing was there. It made finding the place pretty difficult, though after the trek she underwent in order to see it, it becomes kind of clear why the locals don't know it):

I. (섬버사):
   Locals are in awe!
   Mom finds mythical temple
   Should have worn Nikes.

II. So hot, so weary
    A foreigner made welcome
    English? No, just grace.

III. Mom's in a temple
      I am vacationing right:
      On the beach, with book.

IV. New York to Tokyo,
      Man's harrowing tale: two days
      Thirty thousand miles!

Unpleasant Surprise

I. Vacation ho! What?
   Avalon was just kidding.
   Early meeting, Wed.

II. Snores drive me from bed
    I have a revelation:
    Don't sleep in the tub.

Addenda

I. I have so much loot
   I will look so very posh!
   ... so nice to see Mom.

(She came up with that last line, there).

Japan

I.  Children "singing" high
    Stretching what we call "music"
    Can we muzzle them?

Oh, Japanese PA systems! Is there nowhere a choir of piping prepubescents does not belong? This was Mom's and my first impression as we landed in Fukuoka (Hakata) and caught our train to Nagasaki.

II. Hospital wants cash
    Endoscope "to see deep throat"
    We do not charge him.

My mother had a bad case of laryngitis (it turned out) so we had to go to a hospital in Nagasaki, where a very nice otolaryngologist (ENT doctor) met with us and examined her. His English was great, especially in comparison to pretty much everyone else we saw there, but he did say quite clearly that the endoscope was to see her "deep throat." It was the chief moment wherein our diplomatic negotiations were most threatened by our need to giggle like my students. (The alternative last line, actually very accurate and demonstrative of great generosity on his part with regards to uninsured foreigners and expensive tests, but hilarious in light of the phrase previously uttered was: He does not charge us).

III. Japan likes hard cash
     ATM: "Invalid card"
     Three cheers for Starbucks!

This was the most miserable part of our adventure. While my mother sat in the hospital waiting room, I told her (with the foolish confidence of one who places great faith in the Visa and Mastercard logos) that I would pop over to the Post Office (which is apparently where you get your strange foreign money in Japan) and get the cash to pay the hospital. I'd be back in a few minutes, I said. It would be no problem, I said. Oh, how I lied. Hours and three stops with minimal English and seven receipts later, I still had no yen. 

I tried to call the hospital (I figured asking for the only person with my mom's obviously Western name wouldn't be that hard, but it was). The lady at the bank I was currently in helped me as much as she could, finally saying, "Your mother? She go out." I walked back, intending to go to the hotel where I thought she'd go. When I passed the hospital, a twinge of doubt assailed me as to my assistant's accuracy in translation, so I popped in to see and sure enough, there was Mom, still waiting for me. The hospital - and this was a ray of sunshine I totally hadn't expected - said it was fine for us to go away and come back tomorrow to pay them. So we left, and continued the ill-fated mission to find money. Many maps were helpfully drawn to other places who helpfully drew us yet other maps and apologized in bewilderment for their machines not accepting our Visa card. At long, long last (it seemed) we came upon a Starbucks and Mom said to me, "surely corporate America will help us in our hour of need!" (I'm paraphrasing). We went in, ordered, and Internet, I was not emotionally prepared when our card went through. IT WORKED. We proceeded (not having eaten so far that day) to burn a swathe through their food stores not unlike Sherman on his way to the sea.

IV. Nuclear bullying
     My grandfather's legacy
     He thought, "I'm helping!"

So the next day, which ended with a revelation (at 10 p.m. after speaking to another American guest at our hotel) that money could be had from 7-11 (of all places) in quantities not exceeding 10000yen at a time for four times (it is possible I had to light black candles, dance around widdershins and recite the backwards names of Beelzebub. The world will never know), we went to Peace Park. It is a very beautiful, open space with fountains and statuary.

Peace Park exists because Nagasaki is the site of the second nuclear bomb dropped in World War II. My mother's father worked on the Manhattan Project. She is a total pacifist, and it is especially hard from that perspective to think about someone you love believing strongly enough in a war to participate in creating the bomb. She could not tell me exactly what my grandfather thought, as it seems they did not out-and-out discuss it, but she did say she truly believed he thought he was helping; he thought he was doing something good. That led our conversation around to just and unjust war, nationalism's unbridled power, and the classic: man's inhumanity to man.

When I was in poli-sci classes in college, it would sometimes hit me very hard how casually rooms of exceedingly young people talked about leveraging the power of the bomb to accomplish political goals.  I imagine that to be effective in politics, you cannot afford to be constantly overwhelmed by what we have done, and by what we have the power to do. I hope, though, that there are still people making important decisions who are just as bowled over as I am.


In total: not as vacation-like an atmosphere as could be devoutly wished, but the kind of adventure that teaches you you can land on your feet, even if it is a long fall and you land in a latté you could have bought in Connecticut.

A Vacation Haiku

Temples in the rain
We are getting very wet
Sunglasses useless

Okay, so I don't actually have photos of the rainy temple. This was a different one.

It was, it was a glorious thing to be the Pirate King! Part I (of III)

... I was, it must be said, somewhat surprised by this revelation. Most of my stage experience has been backstage or in a choir. I do not like to stand out, but Internet, this weekend, I stood. In an outward manner. And it was okay!

This past weekend, (June 19th and 20th), we performed The Pirates of Penzance at Seoul National University of Education. These performances were the ones we hoped to make money from, beyond the very first performance two weeks ago for which we were sponsored. Our director, due to a nasty infection scare, remained hospitalized, but in this day and age, no paltry physical distance can separate a dedicated and internet-ready director from his thespian flock.

Three cameras and two laptops later, through Skype and Ustream, our motley assemblage was rehearsing under Captain Gimpy's watchful digital eye. It would not be accurate to say that he "never, ever, ever said a big, big 'D.'"* (It wouldn't even be accurate to say that I never ever said one, even though my mother was present). 

While there were actual doors off to the left and right side of the stage this time, they led to closets, rather than wings as I understand them, which made them less helpful than they could have been, but infinitely more so than the unbroken walls of our first performance space. (I... did not think so kindly of them when I discovered one of their unlit walls with my face during the performance. Hindsight, however, has the blessing of being bruiseless). They were serviceable, if intimate, offstage areas.

At any rate, this marked my fourth rehearsal as the Pirate King (third, if we're counting ones where I played only the Pirate King... last weekend was an adventure in identity).  It was not so raring a success as I'd hoped. We did not have time to run the entire show before we performed at 2:00, so we focused on Pirate-King-heavy numbers, which was very nice and accommodating of everyone.

This meant, of course, a special focus on "Oh better far to live and die," which is the actual name of the Pirate King song. The choreography for this song involved a sort of leaping trust fall on my part into the waiting arms of my pirate crew. Now, internet, my pirate crew includes a number of perfectly attractive gentleman pirates, and even those at whom I do not look appreciatively, I enjoy personally. It is not a problem for me to leap into their arms. It is a problem when, in the unending struggle against gravity, they lose a battle. I got dropped, internet. Twice. This was in rehearsal, so I started our 2:00 show with serious Old Lady Syndrome (my hips! My back! Get off my lawn!).

On the bright side, I warmed up my projecting muscles with loud shouts of "SON OF A-!" and "MOTHER-!" (They really did sound just like that, as I stifled the other bits so my actual mother - present at the time - would not make the Face of Deep Disapproval. You may not know it yet, dear reader, but you fear the Face of Deep Disapproval, as all wise people do). So, swears and bruises and all, we deployed for round one.

We hadn't sold more than half our tickets for this show, so our maimed-but-fearless leader had taken the opportunity to invite the residents of the place where we'd been rehearsing. They are, by and large, lovely people who are just a bit touched in the head, and there are many of them, so the auditorium was pretty full. A few needed to leave during the performance, but all in all, I think it was fine. It was well that we filled this show with them, as I think they were a more forgiving than discerning audience, and our first run was... suboptimal. It proceeded apace, but lacked the cohesion and energy, the groove, that we got into by the second show.

Voila, preamble accomplished! Next: The Good Show, Chaps.

*This is a Gilbert & Sullivan reference to HMS Pinafore, talking about how the captain never swears. ("What never?" "Well... hardly ever!")

All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Put on an Archaic But Nonetheless Delightful Show*

 Our first performance of Pirates, the only one people promised to give us money to do in advance, was to be given in Wonjoo, a charmingly rural area (it is a town only to people with a very special definition of "town"). Specifically, we were to deliver our great masterpiece of theatrical fireworks to a camp for 'multicultural children' which is Korean for 'not Korean enough.' They were all very nice kid-type people, but it must be said they did not have the grasp of English necessary to enjoy Gilbert & Sullivan to the fullest extent possible. Anyway, our day of performance started far earlier than the moment we first saw the actual kids.

I stayed from the previous night with a cast member who had access to an apartment just down the road from our rehearsal and storage space, and then, at ridiculous o'clock in the morning (that is, before 6) I woke up and set in motion some of the things that needed to happen that day. We needed to get all the things necessary to our performance to a bus, get that bus to the second place we'd be picking up people, and then get all those people and things out to Wonjoo. This does not seem like it would be, as a friend of mine is fond of saying, the science of the rocket.

A number of helpful actor-type people assembled, ready to load themselves and their gear onto the bus, but the bus was not nearby, and we needed to move all our physical set-pieces onto it, too. This involved the noble sacrifice of at least twenty minutes in the lives of several strapping young men, but soon enough we were all assembled outside the bus we had had to track down, ready to load and leave.

It was at this point that we discovered that a major part of our set, the stairs, would not fit into the bus. As I think I mentioned, the stairs were made from quite... frugal materials, and though they were quite sturdy when left alone, the screws especially resented any kind of reorganization. By that, I mean they were cheap little buggers that stripped if you looked at them. We needed to remove something like 12 of them to get the top panel off the stairs so it would fit in the bus. Many were lost in this action. I also had the joyful experience of being a woman in South Korea, by which I mean that I pointed out that the kick plate to the top step came up to be flush with the platform, so that removing the platform would not actually lower the clearance of the whole set of stairs, the kick plate would need to be removed also. "Pshaw," said the driver of the bus, who, we were told by translation, had A Plan. When his Plan collided with the laws of physics, I do not need to tell you who won. Conservation of Mass: it's not just a good idea, it's the law.

Our altercation with fundamental laws cost us about half an hour, but eventually we had all the keen actor-types who were getting on at that bus stop and all their baggage and all our set-bits. Huzzah! We then went to collect the other people, which, after we determined that, of the two possible gates to the University on whose campus we were meeting, they had chosen the other one, we succeeded in doing. Off to Wonjoo!

On the bus, we chatted and sang and ran lines and sewed buttons on last-minute costumes. There was rollicking. It was good.

Some hours later, we arrived in the beautiful mountain retreat that was the camp, and unloaded our junk into the space we'd been given. Internet, it could not be called a theater. It was a gym with a stage in the wall. Now, in high school, we put on many a show in our gym-theater, and we were pretty amazing at it, actually (SLS, what up!). It cannot be denied, however, that our gym-theater was considerably more accommodating of performers than this particular establishment. There were no wings at all. Offstage was steps down from the stage to the ground floor. We created backstage-ish areas with curtained panels not unlike those at a blood drive, and were totally screwed when some of us (I say "some" to make myself feel better... I can only remember it being me, but I live in the perpetual hope that I was not alone in my idiocy) exited the wrong side of the stage, as the only way across to enter on the other meant going through the audience. There was also no really feasible way to hang our backdrops, as they had been produced in great haste, looked lovely, and were entirely without eyelets or grommets or really anything useful for hanging. Some enterprising people on a rickety ladder, the stage-manager-who-wasn't-me and the production manager, used an inordinate quantity of tape. It saved us from doing theater in an altogether Shakespearean way, but sagged a bit in the middle, making our jolly island appear weary of this mortal coil.

Oddly for an establishment that had invited us to perform a musical, the camp had not seen fit to provide us a piano. Or a keyboard. Or anything that made noise. (This is not totally true... there were a number of traditional Korean drums, and of course many children. They make noise). So we warmed up and began entirely without anything useful of that kind, relying instead on our pianist's perfect pitch, and other members'... slightly less perfect pitch.

The run-throughs were fun, especially before we got on the stage itself. We performed for one another in a big circle on the floor where we'd warmed up, and gross exaggeration was the order and joy of the day. Frederic and Ruth were especially delightful as they tangoed their way through their scenes, dipping dramatically on "circumspect" and flinging legs with wild abandon on "I have deceived you?" (well, Ruth flung, Frederic caught). Fun though it was, it was accompanied by a continual string of misadventure. Policemen's helmets were still drying, was the Sergeant's hat okay, what did these switches do, should the stage be making that loud thumping noise, where are the Wards' fans, can H sew some more buttons for us, what if we don't get a piano, do you fit properly into the PK costume, what's the choreography for this number... I was not, dear reader, only the Pirate King this day. I was still the stage manager in most minds (my own, too), so when I was not riffling the air with my very kingly sword, I was consulting on a number of these items. I have had more restful days, I think. Finally, finally, we had a piano, the backdrops defied gravity just enough, my costume was pinned together enough to avoid citations for indecency, and we were as ready as we could be to begin.

They gave me swords! Two of them!

It was far more a dress rehearsal than a performance, but we were lucky, and the kids were forgiving. We dropped lines, picked them up, entered on interesting sides of the stage, had our wonderful pianist-and-Jane-of-all-trades translate a bit of the show for the kids when their boredom threatened to bring the whole affair to a grinding halt, did something really weird for the curtain call, and stood in front of awkwardly placed lights. It was an adventure. I had a beard.

After we'd mingled and given autographs and packed up our wayward equipment, we headed back to Seoul on the Norebus. Norebang is the Korean word for what we think of as karaoke, and the bus was equipped to be one in motion. I learned things about the cast and crew I had not known before, and it was delightful knowledge to receive. In due time, we staggered home, laden with the trappings of the show.

And oh, dear reader, though it cannot be said I did any more than hold my finger in the dam of the show, and it cannot be said that this show diverged at all from the "natural course of the theater" according to Mr. Henslowe,** (indeed, I dare say this show really reveled in living up to that description to the fullest extent) it was fun.

*Strangely, dear reader, this is not a common English expression. I think it high time we give it a permanent place in the idiom database.

**"The natural course is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster."
"What do we do?!"
"Nothing. Strangely enough it all comes out right in the end."
"How will it?!"
"I don't know, it's a myst'ry."