Bamboo Chopstick in Lemon Tea

다 큰 남자란 마땅히 할말이 없거나 볼일이 없다면 그 여자와 만나서는 안되는 것이다. 순수히 시간과 공간을 공유한다는 개념은 일찌감치 뚜껑이 따인채 유통기한이 지나버린 것이다. 밤 열두시, 나란히 양재천 벤치에 앉아 우리쪽으로 밀려드는 물안개를 바라보던 순간은 아주 깊숙히 간직해야만 하는 추억이 되어버린 것이다.

절규한다.

by Taewan Kim The damp, flowery smell of soil moistens and tickles my nostril. I sneeze once, being blown by the cool wind from the open window of Dad’s old Hyundai Elantra. My eight-year-old self and Terry, my five-year-old brother, are sitting in the back seats, trying to ignore my parents chatting about what to bring for Grandmother’s birthday party next Friday. The noise of the wind is helping me. I am gazing at the same, grey or beige matchbox apartments that are being repeated over and over, as we pass on our way to the movie theater. “Jaaa, we are here,” Dad says, pulling the side break with a jacking sound. “Let’s get off, guys,” Mom encourages us, who’ve got lazy already, after ten-minute comfy lift. “Errr,” I open the door in slow motion. Tender, lime buds on the jujube trees are pushing their faces up through the surface, and sparrows are flying in between in flocks. Sakuras are filling their still-lonely arms in full blooms. I sneeze again a couple of times and my nose feels stuffy. I stretch my back, and see my brother doing the same thing on the other side of the car. “You guys do not miss me,” says Mom, leading the three of us through waving crowd to the ticket office in the gigantic underground shopping mall. Once we arrive, Mom hands me two tickets. I don’t know much about movies or animations, so I roughly stuff them in my pocket. “Let me see,” Terry asks, and fetches it and takes a careful look at it. “Black Jack? What is it, Mom?” “It’s a Japanese animation. It’s going be fun, dear.” “You don’t have something like, Dragon Balls? Or… Gundam?” he spurs. “They say that those are not out yet, and currently Black Jack is the most popular one.” Letting the two behind, I walk over Dad, who is leaning against the column in the back and looking around the place and people. I stand by him, and stare at his glossy black leather dress shoes. He is in light purple, checkered casual short-sleeved shirt and beige pants with black leather belt – (he always used to wear similarly like that. He would seem paralyzed in crowd, and his blank, confused face didn’t match his background. He was like a blank, isolated island in the midst of a large, vibrant fishery with millions of fish and fishing boats.>> “You came, huh?” Dad says, looking down about two seconds and smiling. Then again, he looks back up and exhales, keeping that smile. <<That was his way of communicating with his sons, which took me a while to get.) Suddenly I’ve realized something, and run to Mom, grab her pants and look up at her face. “Mom, I am scared.” “You can do it. You are a big boy now. I am going to tell the lady over there to lead you guys inside and get you sit at the right place. And once the movie finishes, she will come and get you back to us.” (Actually, I don’t remember the conversation was like exactly. I was such a sissy boy back then, so I can imagine myself crying and sobbing hard in public in front of the office. However, if such a messy event happened, I should have at least a slight memory of it, but I – also Mom and my brother – don’t remember it. So I dare to conclude that I mysteriously overcame my lack of gut with my responsibility to guard my brother. Or, maybe I didn’t want to show my sissy-ness in front of my brother.) The medium-sized room is full with around 100 people. We are sitting in the last row, closest to the exit in the back, so that it is handy and quick for the staff to take us after the film. We are busy munching a large bucket of popcorns and a cup of coke being shared on the armrest between us, and soon the movie begins. But not long after, we realize something is going wrong. The movie is spoken in Japanese without dubbing. Although I could read the subtitles easily and quickly thanks to my bookworm-ness, by the time Terry just learned how to read and his pace of reading wasn’t fast enough at all to catch up the subtitles. We look at each other, with both completely puzzled faces. For a couple of minutes, he is basically just looking at the moving pictures and has almost given up guessing the movie’s plot. Seeing him, I hesitate between staying and leaving – Staying is obviously to torture Terry, and leaving means that we have to wait outside for Mom and Dad for two hours – <<there was no commercial mobile phone back then and the beepers were the only we got>>. After a little more while in agony, I made a decision. “Terry, I am reading the subtitles out to you from now on, okay?” I whisper into his ear. And I start to read out every single line in the lowest whisper, one after the other. After a few lines, a couple in the front seats looked back, giving a scary look. I promptly paused. But soon, I resume my whispering, trying to lower it down even more. I am so busy that I don’t have time for Coke or the popcorns any more. Characters talk a lot. (For the rest of the film, I have received many glances from the front and the both sides. But no one stopped me doing it. Although I read out the entire film, I remember little about the plot. I remember that it was about a doctor with biker-like spiky black hair who wander and heal the weak, and he dies alone in the end, bleeding in snow. In any perspective though, it was definitely not a film for an eight-year-old and five-year-old. But when I imagine what we were doing in the back seat in a third person’s point of view, I think it must have been damn beautiful) (This is a precious moment for me, seeing the relationship between Terry and the rest of our family. He has been far from home, moving around New Zealand, the United States, and Canada to study since he was ten years old. I stayed in Korea until I was seventeen and we reunited in Montreal, but he soon left to Toronto. His lonely life exposed to risks has molded his personality into an independent, protective one, like a hard, old tin canner. Now he can’t allow other people inside it. He never says these things with serious sentiments, and his character in my family has become a “mature one.” However, with the time that I spent in Montreal and when I was visiting Toronto, I have seen his youth locked inside his canner. It is sad, because really important things are always left unsaid.)

개인적으로 YG/SM/JYP이 한국 엔터테인먼트산업을 리드하면서 최소한의 다양성은 확보했다는 생각이다. SM은 아시아 시장을 꽉잡고 YG는 본토힙합+한국적인색깔을 추구하며 JYP는 알수없는 음악정체성에도 불구하고 실력보다 측정할수 없는 사람자체의 매력과 정직함을 스타의 자질로 본다는 점에서 서로의 차이점은 어느정도 확실하다. SM에서 아시아시장만 공략하는것처럼 보이긴 해도 내가 알기론 음반제작에 상당수 유럽엔지니어들이 사운드엔지니어링에 참여하는걸로 알고있고 YG도 2NE1의 사례에서 알수있듯이 그 결과물이 세계에서도 미국의 아류물만이 아닌 독특한 세계를 구축해가고있는 편이다. JYP는 회사자체의 성과로만 보면 로엔엔터테인먼트에게도 위협받는 안습의 상황에도, 박진영이라는 독특한 캐릭터가 한국에 있다는것도 나쁘진 않은것같다. 또 YG같은 경우는 아티스트에 대한 과도한 간섭을 표면적으로라도 줄이고 아티스트에게 자율권을 신장해주는 점에서 서구권의 레이블 문화를 어느정도 수용하는듯한 느낌도 든다. 단지 우리나라에서 회사를 갑의 위치에서 다룰 만한 슈퍼 스타가 싸이 빼고는 별로 없어서 그렇지, 북미나 유럽의 경우에도 우리나라 가수들정도의 수익을 가진 그룹의 자율권을 보장해주는 천사같은 회사도 많지 않을거라고 본다. 그럼에도 불구하고 우리나라 기획사의 연습생구조는 아무리봐도 기형적이고 비효율적이며 다양성을 깎아내리는 요소로밖엔 보이지 않는데, 최근에 오디션 프로그램들이 미려하게나마 도움이 되는것같이 보인다. 오디션프로그램의 장점은, 1위가 모든것을 가져가는 구조처럼 보이지만, 결국엔 참여한 모든 아티스트가 대중에게 노출되는 수혜를 받는, 어떤면에서는 상당히 공평한 구조다. 개인적으로 가장 재밌게 즐기는 프로는 슈퍼스타K인데, 이 프로는 다른 경쟁프로들보다 확실히 개천의 독특한 색을 가진 미꾸라지를 용으로 만드는 하는 시스템을 가지고있다. 버스커버스커, 장재인, 조문근, 투개월, 신지수, 유승우 등등, 대부분 전형적인 k팝메인스트림에서 상품성이 뛰어난 사람들은 아니다. K팝스타같은 프로에도 독특한 재능이 지원하긴 하지만 결국은 기존 k팝의 메인스트림 안에 잘 녹아들어갈수 있는경우에만 상위권으로 진입 가능하다. 대표적으로 이하이같은 경우가 그 수혜를 받았고 정세운과 알맹은 숨겨진 재능에 비해 일찍떨어졌다고 본다. 물론 악동뮤지션처럼 정말 신선하고 혁신적인 그룹이 메인스트림안으로 들어간다는점에서 꼭 나쁜것은 아니지만. 최근에는 쇼미더머니를 보기 시작했다. 확실히 케이팝스타에 나오는 랩보단 창의적인 가사가 나왔고 보이스 색깔도 다양하다고 생각한다. 그게 음유시인 래퍼들이 갖춰야 할 가장 중요한 자질이 아닌가. 몇년전부터 한국음악들을때 국내차트100보다는 오디션프로그램에서 나온 곡들을 듣곤 한다. 국내차트100곡중에 독창적이거나 한국적인이라고 할수있는 사운드, 가사, 편곡, 보이스는 10개도 안된다...그리고 장르는 거의 댄스로 통일. 물론 영미권음악이 9할을 넘는 프랑스차트보다야 볼 이유가 있긴 하겠지만, 솔직히 들을 맛이 안난다. 결국 유럽차트는 UK차트랑 다를바가 없으니 닥치고 UK차트/빌보드차트... 물론 여기도 한국 아이돌처럼 답없는 곡들도 절반이지만 다양한 장르가 어느정도의 비중은 각각 확보하기때문에 들으면 뭔가 귀가 넓어지는 맛이 난다. 미국이 서구권 음악을 지배한다면 한국이 아시아에서 그정도의 비중은 차지한다고 생각하는데 장르가 한종류라는건 슬프다...결국 서구문화사대주의처럼 결론이 나는것처럼보이지만....내 요지는....인디홧팅 오디션프로그램 홧팅!! (이미지: "Composition viii" by Vasily Kandinsky, 인터넷에서 퍼온 한국화풍 작품)

The most difficult part for a singer on stage is to stay in their spiritual world and express/appeal it to the audience "at the same time."

The reality that men feel and perceive is a continuous, but mixed chunk of events and stimuli like the spectrum of light. To explain the chaotic world with logic and reason, we try to perceive it as a pile of numerous blocks with clear edges, like when we calculate volumes in Newton's Calculus. Whenever we encounter the joints of the disparates blocks, we sense strange, exotic feelings. However, since to keep having those feelings and the thoughts generated by them is quite disturbing, we usually stack them in the dark deep corners of our mind. While they sporadically, but continuously are itching your brain, viewing artworks inspires us and resonates our entire mind and lead us to Ecstasy. .

Self Portrait - hommage to Nam June Paik

My logo design - officially selected for Marianopolis Artsfest 2014

Yoon Bok Hee 윤복희

Self Portrait

Source: https://www.facebook.com/muum.korea?fref=photo

2013. Fall

(http://xportsnews.hankyung.com/contents/images/upload/article/2014/0130/1391065971171.jpg)

     Once we became seven-year-old, we started to go to different elementary schools, and we stopped hanging out for a long time. I only met him only once when we were around ten, if I am correct. I tried talking about the game, but he avoided talking about it. And for a long time, it was buried in my mind. It is such a weird memory every time I think about it. 

Again, I have become speechless.