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Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Season VIII - Ad Absurdum

It's "good resolutions" and "bad hangovers" time, my friends (warning: navel-gazing ensues).

On the good resolution side, I just updated my list of posts (2007-2013 complete, Season VIII starting right now).

The sobering news? Again, I excreted more than 100 ill-written and embarrassing pieces over the past year.

And again, from this tasteless bibim emerged the usual main 'verticals' ('obsessions'?): culture, politics, and cityscapes.

Fewer posts about food, sorry: I'm still experiencing fantastic moments on that front but now, even the tiniest hole in the most remote wall is covered (if not by my favorite blogs devoted to that noble cause, at least by one of my favorite mobile apps). So if nice spots continue to disappear, there's always a place to remember them... and always stimulating new marvels to save the day.

Besides, I still have Twitter for the odd "selfoodie"(?):

Healthy . The flowers and 칡닙 tasted nice too.
twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/377030247993974784 (20130913)

Back to the main verticals, now. Starting with politics, since the most viewed- and most controversial - post of the year fell into that category. Many found "Can't top that? Shinzo Abe posing as Shiro Ishii, the Josef Mengele of Imperial Japan" a tad exaggerated, but back then (May 2014), I was barely highlighting a few facts about a very extreme character... who kindly obliged by confirming all year long his deplorable nature*.

I know, I know, the same could be said about this excuse for a blog where, even on serious issues (particularly on serious issues?), I often end up posting resolutely absurd stuff: "France claims the British Isles at the United Nations", "Rise Of The Nork Zombies", "Exclusive interview with KIM Jong-un"...

Note that "absurd stuff" also works for the urbanism / cityscapes vertical, but this time I'm not the main culprit: in this part of the world, "urban planners" tend to botch the "planning" bits of the job. Yes, "criticism is easy and art is difficult"... but perusing my unreadable triptychs about Songdo or Seoul's latest rapid transit projects, THAT was heroic (and very kind of you, faithful urbanists!).

Of course, whatever the topic (politics, urbanism, architecture, food, business, literature...), it's always about culture. And procrastinating more serious writing.

At least, last year, I did what My Beloved Seoul begged me to do**, and completed my first collection of fictions about Her. 

Absurdist fictions, naturally.

Seoul Village 2014
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* until the very end, and in spite of a fierce regional competition: "With neighbors like these..." ("Abeignomics" definitely the keyword for 2013)
** in her answer to my love letter (see "Alleyways")

2 comments:

  1. "I excreted more than 100 ill-written and embarrassing pieces over the past year"

    I hope you won't delete any of the following posts, given that I just linked to them in my blog post of "Douglas MacArthur, Xi Jinping, Abe Shinzo, and the looming war between China and Japan":
    1) Can't top that? Shinzo Abe posing as Shiro Ishii, the Josef Mengele of Imperial Japan
    2) To better bridge the gap between Japan, Korea, and China, let's measure the gap within Japan
    3) The Elusive Independence Day - When will Japan officially proclaim its Independence from Imperial Japan?

    My solution to old, stale posts is to keep a constant 200; I must delete one to add a new one.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you. I envy your self-control, but would be scared to have to take such self inflicted tough decisions each time I write something...
      I love the word "mugwump" and its story!

      Delete

Thank you for your comments and remarks. Also for your patience (comments are moderated and are not published right away - only way to curb the spam, sorry). S.

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