One night, on the way home from work, I heard a loud, high mewing. My coworker and I stopped so I could investigate. My petstore downtown always gives me complementary single-serve bags of cheap catfood, so I always have some in my purse to feed strays I find. I couldn’t locate the source of the cries until I looked under the lone car parked along the street. A very tiny paw, toes splayed, hung from the undercarriage for a second before disappearing. With my coworker keeping watch, I climbed under the car and tried to pull the kitten out, to no avail. After about half an hour, the car’s owner arrived. He didn’t seem to understand that I wanted him to pop the hood, and wanted to just drive off, hoping that the kitten would fall out. I stood infront of the car and let him go about 3 feet before getting nervous and stopping him. Finally he released the latch and there was the kitten, sooty and shaking and small enough to fit into the palm of one hand. (more…)

Jane’s Groove (link goes to Facebook page) knows how to rock. Period. Last Saturday offered both Jane’s 2nd anniversary party and a drag show featuring Yoein-Choenha a.k.a. Women’s Empire. Although various places in Itaewon offers drag shows (including Trance – HT to Ji-Yoon for the reminder), this is the first one I’m aware of in Hongdae in the year and a half I’ve been here. A 5,000 won entry fee included a free drink up to 5,000 won, making getting in basically free. (more…)

Mum’s the word from the S.K government on a report that N.K has a third nuclear test in the works.  S.K has plans to train 3000 “cyber sheriffs” to protect against cyber terrorism suspected to be coming from N.K. There are also plans to deploy supersonic ship-to-ground missiles to keep ground and naval targets in check.  S.K has reported its fifth H1N1 victim, but suicidologist Gary McConahay says “Many, many more people are dying from suicide than the H1N1.” And, in more bad news, Canada hammered S.K in the World Cup baseball opener.

From September 18th to October 1st the Seoul Art Cinema will be screening films from the 1980′s New Wave in Japan. The films represent the legacy of the post-studio d.i.y. style of the 1970′s that had parallels to the French Nouvelle Vague of the 1950′s and 60′s. Three are scheduled to be screened with English subtitles.  The Family Game (1983), voted the best film of the year by Japanese critics, Sōgo Ishii’s The Crazy Family (1980), a satire about Japanese family life widely acclaimed for its punk aesthetic, and Violent Cop (1989), actor-director Takeshi Kitano‘s directorial debut.
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Performance artists Colin Riddle and James Topple, also known as “Tiger and Bear” have been in the media a lot these days. “It’s kind of like S and M,” Colin agrees. “We want to lose control. We don’t care what you write about us.” Colin has just moments ago broken six days of living as a mute to talk with The One One Four about what it is he and James do. “The media is a big part of it,” they say, “but mostly, its for our own enjoyment, there is no goal really, it is what it is.” We talked a lot in the beginning about the nature of their project and what it is they hope to achieve, Colin jotting notes on a pad and passing them to James to read. James, a print-maker, poet and performer, who is not comfortable with his work being contextualized, talked about the myth of the tiger and bear as the creation of Korean identity and how they are using the myth to engage with people and understand Korea’s modernization. “It’s really all about hanging around with Go Go Star and eating samgyeopsal in the mountains.”  It’s clear that there is not much to be learned about what they do by talking about it. It is a performance and the doing and experiencing of it is where their art exists. “So let’s go.” I suggest, “Let’s go see this thing in action.” “No,” says James,”This is already it, us talking about Go Go Star with you over samgyeopsal and him (Colin) not talking. That’s what it is.” (more…)

Olympic phenom Usain Bolt has decided to pull out of a scheduled competition in Daegu. For sports enthusiasts disappointed by this news, don’t fret, because 5,000 Koreans still plan to break Korea’s own world record (which no other country wants) by eating 700kg of samgyeopsal on September 19th. If that’s still not enough to satisfy your competitive side, Jeju is hosting the Delphic Games, also known as the Culture Olympics, this week. In other sporting news, Korea’s Olympic hero Park Tae-hwan is going to get a new dirty foreign coach, according to the Korea Swimming Federation.