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They should know: Never, ever, give me a set of markers and say "Go. Do."
Not ever.
My Prop Journal
We had to have props for a mock lesson, today. My group made little journals we were supposed to decorate.
They should know: Never, ever, give me a set of markers and say "Go. Do."
Not ever.
They should know: Never, ever, give me a set of markers and say "Go. Do."
Not ever.
Time passes, dreamlike and sprinkled with flashes of nightmare-- the eyes-rolled-back snarl of a teacher; kimchi that tastes of fire and blood; the anglerfish horrors of the Suwon fish market.
But things are good, you laugh over minor cultural misunderstandings with new friends, and spin classic Korean references into Americanized threats-- "Don't make me call my friend in Jeju-do. He come up here and crack skulls till I get a drink, biatch." The sun and the humidity conspire to steam you on the way to your Crowd Control 101 class, but it's only a halfhearted effort. On the bus, you dodge scowls from toothless Korean geezers with a bow and grin.
Waiting for an elevator one day, you joke with one of the orientation coordinators.
"All this heat," he tells you, "you're probably going to lose some weight."
"I hope so," you tell him, crossing your fingers, and deciding not to take the remark personally.
"Really? I thought that in America, having more weight showed that you could afford to feed yourself very well," he tells you. You smile, like it's a weird joke you're missing the social cues to pick up on. When all you get back is an earnest stare, you explain that that line of thinking was true for France in the 15-hundreds, but nowadays Americans are just fat because of eating poorly and little to no exercise. You start to explain that the leading research shows that high-fructose corn syrup actually eliminates the body's ability to tell the brain that it's full, but the elevator doors slide open and you can see that he's already lost interest.
There's a terrifying coordination in some of the Sports Day groups. A sort of militant efficiency that comes from synchronized chanting and the muscle-pop of testosterone. There's grit in their voices and veins that bulge from throats. The chain of command is easy to spot, top down, orders that get barked over dodgeballs and across bugbitten links in the human rope. There's a violence inside their organization, and it all seems rather silly for 10,000 won worth of KFC gift certificates.
One night, you go to Noraebang and warble through the echo of the mic. You learn that "Bohemian Rhapsody" is not, under any circumstances, a good warm-up song. You drink $3 ciders and bounce on the couches, waiting for the booklet of songs. You struggle to keep up with Eminem's lung capacity, and Matthew Bellamy's stratosphere pitch, and have a fantastic time. There's talk of purchasing a third hour, but you eventually decide against it.
You Skype obsessively. Your girlfriend's still in Iowa, a 14-hour time difference, and you phone her at 11pm, so when she answers, you get to poke fun at her bed-crazy hair. She complains: "I haven't even brushed my teeth yet." You tell her that she probably tastes like day-old tuna and half eaten broccoli. You make faces and gagging sounds, but you wonder if you're right. You skype other folks too-- your mom, who still hasn't figured out her webcam; your friend who works the graveyard shift at a college parking ramp; your old roommate who wants to talk writing and art and philsophy with you. For all these things, if you could make love to the internet, you would (but only if the internet was into it, and only if it weren't a dude, and not if it were into anything freaky... which, knowing the internet, it probably would be).
In Seoul, you see a legless man drag himself down the street, face down on a skateboard. He's filthy with dirt the pedestrians kick up from the street. Grime collects in the wrinkles in his face, deep grooves that cut through his forehead from hours and days of straining to look up. He's tied tire rubber onto his stubs to cope with the constant friction with the street. He's got a radio that he shoves along in front of him, screeching the peppy K-pop noodle-eating song they played in your dance class. The song's happiness sours, from his radio. You wonder how the world looks from his perspective; just shoes and pantcuffs and cigarette butts, and the occasional glint of money: yes! 50 won! You think this in the disgustingly blase way that rich, white, employed college kids think about these things-- a flickering curiosity that's gone by the next knicknack shop. You cannot fathom the inherent nihilism, the raw hopelessness, of his situation because hopelessness is a word you simply do not understand. You see three more men, legless or paralyzed, their thighs withered and atrophied. You do not give them money.
In class, you wince at misspellings and grammatical faux pas that your fellow soon-to-be teachers stumble into. But they're nice folks, by and large, and they're in front of the class for the first time, so you decide it's okay to cut them some slack.
But things are good, you laugh over minor cultural misunderstandings with new friends, and spin classic Korean references into Americanized threats-- "Don't make me call my friend in Jeju-do. He come up here and crack skulls till I get a drink, biatch." The sun and the humidity conspire to steam you on the way to your Crowd Control 101 class, but it's only a halfhearted effort. On the bus, you dodge scowls from toothless Korean geezers with a bow and grin.
Waiting for an elevator one day, you joke with one of the orientation coordinators.
"All this heat," he tells you, "you're probably going to lose some weight."
"I hope so," you tell him, crossing your fingers, and deciding not to take the remark personally.
"Really? I thought that in America, having more weight showed that you could afford to feed yourself very well," he tells you. You smile, like it's a weird joke you're missing the social cues to pick up on. When all you get back is an earnest stare, you explain that that line of thinking was true for France in the 15-hundreds, but nowadays Americans are just fat because of eating poorly and little to no exercise. You start to explain that the leading research shows that high-fructose corn syrup actually eliminates the body's ability to tell the brain that it's full, but the elevator doors slide open and you can see that he's already lost interest.
There's a terrifying coordination in some of the Sports Day groups. A sort of militant efficiency that comes from synchronized chanting and the muscle-pop of testosterone. There's grit in their voices and veins that bulge from throats. The chain of command is easy to spot, top down, orders that get barked over dodgeballs and across bugbitten links in the human rope. There's a violence inside their organization, and it all seems rather silly for 10,000 won worth of KFC gift certificates.
One night, you go to Noraebang and warble through the echo of the mic. You learn that "Bohemian Rhapsody" is not, under any circumstances, a good warm-up song. You drink $3 ciders and bounce on the couches, waiting for the booklet of songs. You struggle to keep up with Eminem's lung capacity, and Matthew Bellamy's stratosphere pitch, and have a fantastic time. There's talk of purchasing a third hour, but you eventually decide against it.
You Skype obsessively. Your girlfriend's still in Iowa, a 14-hour time difference, and you phone her at 11pm, so when she answers, you get to poke fun at her bed-crazy hair. She complains: "I haven't even brushed my teeth yet." You tell her that she probably tastes like day-old tuna and half eaten broccoli. You make faces and gagging sounds, but you wonder if you're right. You skype other folks too-- your mom, who still hasn't figured out her webcam; your friend who works the graveyard shift at a college parking ramp; your old roommate who wants to talk writing and art and philsophy with you. For all these things, if you could make love to the internet, you would (but only if the internet was into it, and only if it weren't a dude, and not if it were into anything freaky... which, knowing the internet, it probably would be).
In Seoul, you see a legless man drag himself down the street, face down on a skateboard. He's filthy with dirt the pedestrians kick up from the street. Grime collects in the wrinkles in his face, deep grooves that cut through his forehead from hours and days of straining to look up. He's tied tire rubber onto his stubs to cope with the constant friction with the street. He's got a radio that he shoves along in front of him, screeching the peppy K-pop noodle-eating song they played in your dance class. The song's happiness sours, from his radio. You wonder how the world looks from his perspective; just shoes and pantcuffs and cigarette butts, and the occasional glint of money: yes! 50 won! You think this in the disgustingly blase way that rich, white, employed college kids think about these things-- a flickering curiosity that's gone by the next knicknack shop. You cannot fathom the inherent nihilism, the raw hopelessness, of his situation because hopelessness is a word you simply do not understand. You see three more men, legless or paralyzed, their thighs withered and atrophied. You do not give them money.
In class, you wince at misspellings and grammatical faux pas that your fellow soon-to-be teachers stumble into. But they're nice folks, by and large, and they're in front of the class for the first time, so you decide it's okay to cut them some slack.
So. Here's some squid. They know not wtf they're in for (or I wonder if they do, and they bob in desperation... That would make me sad).
Travel
Shock isn't sudden. Not this kind, anyway. This kind slithers in, slips from periphery to focus, into the flesh of the place. It's an orchestra tilting into alignment around a single pure Clarinet's A, the moment when the blur of motes form the words on the highway sign: Chicago O'Hare Next Exit.
You get on the bus and swelter. The ceiling boasts Air Conditioning next to every pair of airplane-nozzeled fans, but you don't believe it. The bus isn't on yet, because the driver is busy feeding it luggage. So you drop your head back on the teal, swirl-patterned vinyl headrest and you dream of bathing in more than your own sweat. Then, eventually, the bus starts. The AC kicks on (not a lie!) and the air smells bookstore-stale. You fake conversations with the other travelers inbetween three minute naps.
It's little things at first-- how long the dotted white streetlines are, how the snap-together plastic barricades are blocky and crenelated, how the police officers flap white gloves at traffic and walk in unison. Then the larger things enter your field of vision: 25 exact replica apartment buildings (black steel balconies and sprayed on stucco exteriors). Brand names you don't recognize. How aggressively the bus ignores the lanes.
There are the obvious things of course-- the periodic refrain, "I can't believe we're in Korea!" from various voices all around; the sameness in hair color and height; and of course, the sudden onset of illiteracy.
When you arrive, you want nothing more than to fall asleep, but you can't. You can't because it's 8:50 am, and you have to get On Schedule. You're off, you lost a day, and your legs ache and your back spasms, but you're not On Schedule and you need to be On Schedule. So you stay up and take walks, slow and aimless. You work on getting money changed but for some inexplicable reason need your passport to do so. It's day 1, but you worry about being too insular.
But then again, you've written something for the fist time in months. So, you know, there is that.
You get on the bus and swelter. The ceiling boasts Air Conditioning next to every pair of airplane-nozzeled fans, but you don't believe it. The bus isn't on yet, because the driver is busy feeding it luggage. So you drop your head back on the teal, swirl-patterned vinyl headrest and you dream of bathing in more than your own sweat. Then, eventually, the bus starts. The AC kicks on (not a lie!) and the air smells bookstore-stale. You fake conversations with the other travelers inbetween three minute naps.
It's little things at first-- how long the dotted white streetlines are, how the snap-together plastic barricades are blocky and crenelated, how the police officers flap white gloves at traffic and walk in unison. Then the larger things enter your field of vision: 25 exact replica apartment buildings (black steel balconies and sprayed on stucco exteriors). Brand names you don't recognize. How aggressively the bus ignores the lanes.
There are the obvious things of course-- the periodic refrain, "I can't believe we're in Korea!" from various voices all around; the sameness in hair color and height; and of course, the sudden onset of illiteracy.
When you arrive, you want nothing more than to fall asleep, but you can't. You can't because it's 8:50 am, and you have to get On Schedule. You're off, you lost a day, and your legs ache and your back spasms, but you're not On Schedule and you need to be On Schedule. So you stay up and take walks, slow and aimless. You work on getting money changed but for some inexplicable reason need your passport to do so. It's day 1, but you worry about being too insular.
But then again, you've written something for the fist time in months. So, you know, there is that.
At the Fair:
There’s people necking in the poolhouse. I imagine they stayed behind to count up the coins and ones from todays entries and hotdogs. They pretend to hate each other just a little too much, so everyone knows. They think they’re being clever, but everyone knows.
The pool is located on a vast hill of gravel. I try to imagine the gravel being covered in grass and trees; when it rains, the water runs through the grass in little rivers instead of forming the dust blisters it does now.
Inside the pool house, the couple doesn’t have sex, just the clicks of saliva and the nostrils of excited breath to tell each other how they feel.
The fair smells of sweat and manure and cherry flavoring. It’s an honest scent-- that is to say, it’s a smell made with no thought towards it whatsoever. It’s a smell that rings of activities rather than intents-- kid wants to ride a pony, so the fair smells of manure; there's oil on the food and in the machines, probably from different sources; it’s summer and there’s people, and that equals sweat.
The noise is maddening if you don’t know how to listen to it. People who grow up in cities do it automatically. For people in a Smalltown, USA, it takes focus and dedication. There’s bells and buzzers and screams and music. There’s machinery thrumming and pony hoof beats. Cars in the distance, conversations up close, and above it all, the grinding of cicadas. But then, see, I’m already doing it. Taking the Big Sound and slicing it into its parts, sense for the senses. You can’t write it on a page, it‘s too big. It’s the oppression and the exhilaration of having no control over your environment whatsoever. It’s sound waves you feel, reverberations that hit you in your eyejelly and throat. It can’t be written, and can‘t be read; I don’t even know why I tried.
There’s lights and movement and hairdos-- oh! The hairdos! (Buzzcuts and bobs and mullets, oh my!) The fair has two ferris wheels; the couple one and the lunatic one. Couples take the huge tall one, the one that puts out 70% of the fair’s light pollution. It towers above the other rides, high above the crest of the fair’s hill, and moves at a crawl. It’s like sitting in an Applebee’s booth that spins over the town.
The lunatic one is different. It has cages-- roll cages designed to withstand being dropped from it’s crest (not sure why, falling from that height would turn ribcage to chunky salsa anyways). There’s motors and pistons all over its exterior, trying to convince everyone that’s how it moves, but I talked to the carney who runs it for a bit, so I know better. In reality, there’s a huge underground hamster wheel that they put all the fair’s methheads on. “To load the Paying Customers,” he says, Paying Customers is like some zombie mantra to these people, passed down from corporate, “to load Paying Customers, we let the big hunk of meth drop from the ceiling and let them salivate all over it to soften it enough to scrape bits off with their teeth. Then when the Paying Customers are all settled in, we pull the meth up and off they go.” This makes sense to me. Fair week is the week all the methheads are conspicuously absent from the QuickShop.
The pool is located on a vast hill of gravel. I try to imagine the gravel being covered in grass and trees; when it rains, the water runs through the grass in little rivers instead of forming the dust blisters it does now.
Inside the pool house, the couple doesn’t have sex, just the clicks of saliva and the nostrils of excited breath to tell each other how they feel.
The fair smells of sweat and manure and cherry flavoring. It’s an honest scent-- that is to say, it’s a smell made with no thought towards it whatsoever. It’s a smell that rings of activities rather than intents-- kid wants to ride a pony, so the fair smells of manure; there's oil on the food and in the machines, probably from different sources; it’s summer and there’s people, and that equals sweat.
The noise is maddening if you don’t know how to listen to it. People who grow up in cities do it automatically. For people in a Smalltown, USA, it takes focus and dedication. There’s bells and buzzers and screams and music. There’s machinery thrumming and pony hoof beats. Cars in the distance, conversations up close, and above it all, the grinding of cicadas. But then, see, I’m already doing it. Taking the Big Sound and slicing it into its parts, sense for the senses. You can’t write it on a page, it‘s too big. It’s the oppression and the exhilaration of having no control over your environment whatsoever. It’s sound waves you feel, reverberations that hit you in your eyejelly and throat. It can’t be written, and can‘t be read; I don’t even know why I tried.
There’s lights and movement and hairdos-- oh! The hairdos! (Buzzcuts and bobs and mullets, oh my!) The fair has two ferris wheels; the couple one and the lunatic one. Couples take the huge tall one, the one that puts out 70% of the fair’s light pollution. It towers above the other rides, high above the crest of the fair’s hill, and moves at a crawl. It’s like sitting in an Applebee’s booth that spins over the town.
The lunatic one is different. It has cages-- roll cages designed to withstand being dropped from it’s crest (not sure why, falling from that height would turn ribcage to chunky salsa anyways). There’s motors and pistons all over its exterior, trying to convince everyone that’s how it moves, but I talked to the carney who runs it for a bit, so I know better. In reality, there’s a huge underground hamster wheel that they put all the fair’s methheads on. “To load the Paying Customers,” he says, Paying Customers is like some zombie mantra to these people, passed down from corporate, “to load Paying Customers, we let the big hunk of meth drop from the ceiling and let them salivate all over it to soften it enough to scrape bits off with their teeth. Then when the Paying Customers are all settled in, we pull the meth up and off they go.” This makes sense to me. Fair week is the week all the methheads are conspicuously absent from the QuickShop.
