Bah Humburgers

I started not liking Christmas back in 2018, what a horrible Christmas that was. Looking back, I’ve had different kinds of Christmases in my long existence: warm family-oriented celebrations with gifts and all sorts of food, depressing Christmases spent all by myself, saucy Christmases similar to those found on Internet videos, but Christmas 2018 truly ruined Christmas for me. It was the worst. I don’t want to dwell too much on the details, but it started a miserable trend to which I’m not sure I could recover from. And now every Christmas, I get reminded of that horrible night. Ever had that happen to you? A holiday you’ve cherished since childhood has been turned into a depressing reminder? Well, that’s me. So yeah, I’m really in no mood for trees, decorations, and presents.

And now it’s 2020, and it seems like the rest of the world is catching up with my feelings towards Christmas. Everyone’s sentiment towards the holidays is just a little bit closer to how I feel about it. It’s a day where you’re supposed to find joy despite everything in your life being miserable and hopeless.

In any case, I hope you’re doing better than I am. I hope your holidays, your year, and your life is better than mine. Smile and be happy. Things can only get better, count your blessings, someone else’s situation is always worse, etc. Etc.

….

Let me continue my depressing rant with what I imagine is an unpopular take: photorealism is not art, at least most people’s take on photorealism is not art. It annoys me how people are too focused on the initial shock at the skill of rendering an image with an almost photographic precision when the image itself is not saying anything that the original photograph already said. It doesn’t matter whether I see the works on galleries or on Instagram. They are not art. Simply, they are an exercises in meticulous reproduction. Re-drawing a photorealistic image of a beautiful woman by hand doesn’t change nor add meaning to the original photograph. It’s merely a change in medium. If anything, it just tells me that the artist spent an inordinate amount of time staring at a picture of a woman doing something a colored printer can easily do. Photorealism is akin to having great penmanship and re-writing great literary works. It is re-writing, not writing.

Steve Martin said that the joy of looking at Edward Hopper paintings, or many other paintings for that matter, is figuring out the meaning of the work. Why are elements of the work placed in a particular way? What are characters or objects in the piece meant to tell the viewer? This is why some works can endure being seen once or twice, like a long game of chess. And once you figure it out, the work is dead. It is very easy to lose interest in it. This is why most photorealistic pieces don’t work for me. The one thing that most viewers try to figure out is, “How did the artist do this?” and “How long did it take?” And the answer is already in the questions. With enough time, practice, and even techniques like tracing or drawing grids, I believe anyone can duplicate photographs. And once the viewer comes to that answer or has recovered from the initial awe of realizing that, “it’s not a photograph,” then it’s just a quick stroll around images that don’t say anything beyond the original.

This is not to say that I don’t enjoy photorealism. I do. I actually like the works of Torlakson, Blackwell, and others, as well as the hyperrealist movement as a whole. But most photorealist works that try to pass off as art, in my opinion, is not really art. They are bland exercises. Photorealism is often craft disguised as art. And even that comment is doing a disservice to many people who do crafts because some “crafts” could very well be works of art. I cannot say the same for the many of the photorealistic works I see. I’m sure the artists themselves are very talented and are demonstrably quite resilient and patient, but they are better served doing other types of work. The real tragedy in all of this cuts two ways. Talented people are spending too much time making art that is shallow and not really art, and people are actually taking the time to look at and admire “art” are not getting anything out of it other than, “wow, the artist is really talented. He didn’t say anything, but he is really talented.”

Asshole Dream, Asshole Reality

I don’t have much patience for hearing about other people’s dreams, but since this is my website and no one is being forced to read it, I’m going to indulge myself a bit and talk about an asshole dream I had last night.

My mom passed away back in 2008 of pancreatic cancer. It was rather fast. She started experiencing pain in her stomach around November of 2007, then she was finally diagnosed with pancreatic cancer on February 2008, then she passed away come July. Pancreatic cancer is awful.

So last night, I had a dream that my mom committed suicide. Apparently, she had a fight with my dad during her birthday and she jumped off an apartment building roof in the middle of the night. We were all in shock. I remember my grandmother, her mother, was there too, mourning my mom’s sudden passing. Interestingly, my grandmother passed away two years ago as well. So anyway, it was a pretty depressing dream/nightmare. I couldn’t remember much but several things happened regarding investigations and funerals but eventually, I woke up.

You know when you wake up from a nightmare and you’re all relieved that it was all a nightmare and that everything is going to be fine? Well, I woke up, felt relief, then I remembered that my mom already passed away over ten years ago. I also remember that Korea is also in the middle of a second wave of coronavirus infections and that I don’t know what awaits me at work. Depressed, relieved, then back to depressed. My brain’s subconscious is a jerk asshole.

Speaking of the coronavirus, for two days in a row now, Korea has been having over 1000 cases a day. Before that, the country’s jumped to over 600 a day. We are currently on a high alert level, close to the strictest level yet, which would mean a total lockdown and closing of businesses and schools. While Korea has been a model for containing the virus with its constant testing and contact-tracing, the country appears to have been caught flat-footed with the second wave. Unfortunately, while the rest of the world is already getting started with vaccination, the government decided to wait it out until March 2021 before getting the vaccine. The government wants to see how the rest of the world reacts to the vaccine first. There is some wisdom to healthy skepticism and caution, but the government seems to be neglecting to help people and businesses while they hold out and wait for life to go back to normal. The Trump administration is being lauded for only providing a $1200 check once to its citizens. Well, Korea only gave out assistance once as well.

As much as I appreciate the government’s initial reaction to the virus, it seems like the government only has testing and contact-tracing in its bag of tricks. Cases are increasing and all we’re doing is testing. They put free testing facilities all over Seoul, even outside my workplace. What I don’t see are financial aid for businesses and for people who are unable to earn a living while they are forced to stay at home. As for waiting and see for the rest of the world to react to the vaccines’ side effects, I wonder if that skepticism would be there if it weren’t for the anti-vaccine movement.

Here We Go Again.

We are back to lockdown. Seoul will be on lockdown starting tomorrow until the end of the year. We’re now ending 2020 the way it’s been the whole year: miserable indoors, wondering if my job will be safe at the end of it all. Right now, we are required to wear masks at work even at our desks in the office. There are strict limits imposed on restaurants and coffee shops. The same goes for gyms, saunas, study rooms, and karaokes. So far, I haven’t been asked to work from home, but I work with publishing and testing. This might not affect the publishing side of things, but scheduled language tests were canceled a few months ago due to the pandemic.

It’s kinda ironic because just over the weekend, I happened to run into an old classmate from Korean class while I was in a bookstore. This is a class I had to stop attending due to the risk of catching COVID-19 and spreading it to my company. Well, I was thinking of maybe contacting him later for drinks sometime, just to properly catch up. Then BOOM, the government raises the pandemic alarm level. Minimize socializing. Stay home. Don’t take unnecessary risks.

What’s depressing is how all of this has affected many businesses in the city. Bars, restaurants, and stores which relied heavily on foot traffic, especially from Chinese and Japanese tourists have just been wrecked. Shopping and tourist districts have been ghost towns, which is more evident considering it’s the Christmas holiday. We were doing quite well, a couple of months ago, even had daily cases down to less than 50. But for the past few days, there’s been a huge uptick. Just today, there’s over 600 cases added to the country’s total. Luckily, people are not protesting against wearing masks. Everyone understands that it’s a necessity. I just wish the government provided more aid to businesses and made it easier for people to work from home.

There’s hope with the government securing contracts for the vaccine once it becomes available, but who knows when regular people would have access to it? Just like the rest of the world, I don’t think normal people would have access to it until summer 2021. And just to add more to the stressful situation, the government is also currently trying to contain a highly pathogenic strain of bird flu after a couple of cases broke out south of Seoul.

Seriously, I’m just tired of worrying. I’m just tired of wondering if it will be me next. I keep seeing all of these people suddenly put into these dire situations, and I can’t help but constantly be anxious of the axe finally dropping down on my skinny, selfish neck.

All of this comes to one conclusion: New Year celebrations are bullshit. I know, I know. It’s a bit early, but I’m stewing here. Last year, I saw Post Malone and BTS try to make the Times Square Ball Drop still be a thing for young people. I also saw several Japanese acts perform their annual song competition on NHK followed by solemn temple blessings. In Korea, they rang the Bosingak Belfry five minutes from where I work. It was crowded with people. Pengsu, a viral penguin mascot, was one of the bell ringers, which I assume added to the popularity of the usually crowded event. All of these events, all of these “farewell to 2019 and hello to 2020,” all of these blessings… they didn’t stop 2020 from being the disaster that it’s been. I can’t help but think that if 2020 had a face, it would look like Post Malone’s. And now the year is almost past and if we’re lucky, we all just got older fast. The unlucky one lost their livelihood, lost a loved one, or passed away themselves. And yeah, the mayor of Seoul committed suicide six months after ringing that bell (That’s not the only suicide story that happened around my periphery this year as well!).

New Years are like birthdays. They just happen regardless, and the only reason people celebrating them is they happen to survive another year. There is nothing special about them. If anything, the hope one feels at the end of the year should extend to every night when the day turns because that’s exactly what New Years are: just another day passing (how’s that for a somewhat positive turn?).

Just Dance?

My wife and I, we have Just Dance at home. I don’t play it, but she’s occasionally plays the game to work out or just to de-stress. I believe we have all of the releases since we started buying it for the Wii, even the two Just Dance Japans. We got it for the Wii, then for the PS3, then for the PS4. Something happened on 2018 however. The game, which to be honest, looked like it spent most of its budget on music licensing and often had poor production and didn’t spend too much money on the presentation and graphics, suddenly, it changed its UI. The makers of the game decided to incorporate a subscription service along with the main game. Now, when you load the game, not only do you see all of the games on the disc, you also see games from Just Dance Unlimited, a monthly gaming subscription service which allowed users to stream songs from past games.

Now, we didn’t have any reason to subscribe to this service. After all, I believe we already have all of the songs from previous releases. We just have to fire up the disc from other consoles and voila! But now we’re on a situation where we are constantly being sold a product we don’t need. And if anything, we are currently being reminded of other good songs in other games, with choreography my wife is more familiar with, instead of the new ones on the disc. It’s an awful, awful design. It’s like buying Super Mario 2 and constantly being reminded about how awesome Super Mario 1 is and how fun it would be to fire up that game again instead of slogging through the newer game.

But I think the biggest crime of the change in UI is that it treats the customer like a bystander instead of a customer. Now, I understand the concept of the “game as a service” model, but I think developers too often forget the “game” part in that phrase. I just bought a game, do I have to be reminded that I have to pay more to enjoy a fuller experience right from the start? And this is especially annoying to someone who already has the other games, a real loyal customer. “Thanks for your business, now re-buy all of the stuff again.”

So yeah, after 2018 came out, the 2019 and 2020 versions came out and were quite forgettable. They didn’t get much play. Or if they did, we ended up firing up the older CDs after being reminded of other songs in the Just Dance catalog. As for 2021, the game is already being sold on a massive discount after just being released last month. I’m not sure whether it’s because of poor sales or they are just banking on people paying for the monthly service after buying the disc. As for us, my wife is more into Beat Saber at the moment. This is another aspect where Just Dance dropped the ball. They didn’t even bother having the most popular band on their game. Beat Saber just released ten BTS songs on their platform last month. Just Dance won’t be missed.

So why am I writing about Just Dance right now? I’m not big into dance games, but the problem I saw with Just Dance permeates many aspects in business at the moment. People forget what they’re all about in the first place in their drive to push for more sales. And it’s not just with games. I wrote about Instagram last week. They’re turning into an advertising/shopping platform, forgetting that people are there mostly to share photos, grow their own following, and make their friends insanely jealous. This happens out in the real world, too. I remember going to a very popular Genghis Khan Japanese barbecued lamb restaurant a while ago. This place usually has a long line-up. But when we sat down and started eating, our server was in such a rush grilling meat and having us finish our meal in order to sit more people waiting in line. The dish is supposed to be slowly savored with drinks and conversation. It’s not fast food.

Anyway, I know businesses can’t help but try to make more money, but they should at least try to be more subtle about it. Make the “upgrade” icons less intrusive. Let customers enjoy themselves more before trying to milk them for more money. I just paid for a bottle of champagne for the table. Don’t ask me to fork over another $200 for a plate of cheese the minute the bottle arrives. At least flirt with me a little first and throw some lies at me. Call me handsome. There’s a delicate dance to these things, otherwise, customers will be turned off and leave. Don’t they teach this in business school?