My First Week in the Midwest

So far, things are going well. No real culture shock yet. People are very friendly. My biggest fear was finding a group of people I can fit in with. Being an intellectual is still one of my biggest vices and I assumed that people here were going to view intellectuals as elitists and treat them with disdain. Not so, so far. I can be laid back and I like how this environment is forcing me to be a little more "real". I can still get my intellectual fix from the other three students in my studio and from foreign students. It may sound like being judgemental but to me, being intellectual doesn't necessarily require intellect. The best definition I've ever heard of an intellectual is someone whose primary role in life is to talk about what they do for a living. It's a way of life, and sometimes not always the healthiest manner of living.

In some ways, I like Champaign-Urbana better than Baltimore. There are better wine bars here. It's much safer and the public transportation is much more extensive, reliable and customer friendly. I haven't had to deal with the whole college-town aspect of it yet. I'll reserve judgement until basketball season rolls around. The girls here are gorgeous. It's great to be in an environment where looks is paradoxically taken out of the equation when looking for someone. You just rely on the things you're supposed to rely on like personality, chemistry. Pretty weird how that works.

My Long-Ass Drive

I didn't explain the previous title. I had to stay an extra night in Baltimore(something I don't want to get into) so I ended up leaving at 11:30am on Sunday, the 22nd. I had to drive to DC in the morning in order to ship a bunch of boxes. I was afraid that I would hit a checkpoint and have to be searched. The Post Office is right by the Capitol. I unloaded six 45-65 lbs boxes and shipped them for $120. At least the government is good for some things these days!

I drove back to Baltimore and crammed an amazing amount of stuff into my car. I had to leave some stuff behind. I took some pictures of the apartment before I left. Once I got on the highway, it was pretty easy - stay on 70 W for a gazillion miles and take 65 to 74. One problem. My car stereo isn't working so it was phone radio and phone calls that would keep me company for the ride. Now the radio on my phone doesn't have the strongest signal so the channels I would seem to get are evangelical, country, and hip-hop stations. I got to drive through the Appalachians. Now I passed a couple of civil war sites, Harper's Ferry and Antietem. They're on my list and I was so tempted to stop and do some sight seeing. I did not want to slow down. Plus, Antietem would be so depressing.

The difference in vegetation on highways always impresses me. Traveling halfway across the country lets you see quite a variety. Ohio was the turning point, more specifically Columbus. After Columbus, it was flat roads and corn fields all around me. And speaking of Ohio, due its designation as a battleground state for this upcoming election, I decided to do an unscientific poll by counting bumper stickers. It came out to a tie. It's important to note that I saw no Nader stickers.

Now I've lived in this country for 22 years. I'm always aware to some degree that I am Korean, but it's been a while since I've been in a situation where I've felt very self-conscious and insecure about it. This happened EVERY time I stopped for gas between Columbus and Illinois. Thankfully, no one said anything. It was mostly looks and the energy I was getting from those around me at these various stops. It's going to suck if I ever get a job in a place like that.

I finally get to my apartment at midnight and it's about what I expected. You must note that I took a huge leap of faith in not seeing the place before I signed the lease. I just got a good feeling about my future roommates. It's small, a little run-down, have some various smells but sturdy enough to not to worry about losing one's life or health in saving a boatload on rent. It's also nice to live in a neighborhood where you can leave stuff in your car overnight because all I wanted to do was to sleep.

My Last Night(er, Nights) in Baltimore

I chose August 21 as the day I was going to move so the Friday before would be my last night. I had so many errands to do, many people to see before I leave. I started off with all the mundane shit we all like to put off. I just plowed through the packing of all the boxes and the requisite cleaning. I had bags of clothes I wanted to donate so I went to the Basilica to inquire about it. Now I lived close to the Basilica for years and never have set foot in the building. I know that Baltimore is very proud of it - I really could care less about it....Until I saw the interior. Gorgeous and not over the top llike some other churches I've seen. Supposedly, they're getting rid of the stained glass windows in the name of authenticity. The church originally had plain glass. Glass would allow too much light into the chruch and ruin the ambience.

On my last night, I wanted to go to one of my favorite restaurants in Baltimore: Abacrombie, Boccaccio, Helmand, Blue Agave, Tapas Teatro, Shogun. Boccaccio and Abacrombie were eliminated due to price. After conferring with friends, we chose Blue Agave. One friend who has had bad experiences there was reluctant to go. Nevertheless, we were quite satisfied by our drinks and food, especially the reluctant one.

On a side note, I did end up stopping by Abacrombie since I still had a uniform for them. I talked to everyone I know and got to try some wine that the chef is trying to work into their next wine dinner. What a great group of people.

I then went to An Die Musik for a jazz show. A friend of mine I haven't seen in a while runs these shows and it was nice of him to get me a ticket on my last night in town. The show featured Jon Hicks and Al Maniscolco. The drummer was Eric Kennedy, someone I haven't seen in a long time - I forgot how good he is. He is one of those musicians who will change the way you think about that instrument - he's that good. It's been a long time since I've seena show that good.

And now, it was on to drinking! My mechanic has been giving me moonshine. I've been afraid of the stuff so I've been giving it away. I finally had the courage to try it. Much to our surprise, it's pretty damn good. Strong but quite smooth. Kinda like a nice grape brandy. We passed it around and warned everyone not to smell it first. "Its bark is bigger than its bite", as one friend quipped. I saw a vast majority of the people I wanted to see.

I was pretty drunk but didn't get overly sentimental about leaving. Others were sadder than I was. I knew that I have many ties to Baltimore and will come back to visit every once in a while.

Final Trip to DC

Last Saturday, I make one last trip to DC in order to come closer to going through my checklist that I posted earlier. I'm really poor right now so thank God almost everything was free. I started at the Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens and Marsh. They cultivate water lilies, lotuses, and stuff. I wish the weather was better but what an exotic collection of plants! As a Buddhist, of course, lotuses have a very special place in my heart. They also had those big-ass Victorian water lilies. There's a nice boardwalk going into the marsh area - I suddenly thought that I was on the set of Apocalypse Now. I saw a crane in the distance just standing around. I waited patiently to see it fly, but that didn't happen. It was too for away for me to even scare it into flying.

I then made it to the Library of Congress. Of course, with the terror threat level at orange, it was a pain in the ass getting there. I watched one of the checkpoints while I was waiting for the light to change. Apparently, the only cars they were checking were SUVs and cars driven by anyone remotely Arab looking. No comment. The Library was gorgeous. If you haven't gone, I strongly urge you to do so the next time you're in DC.

I then went to the Corcoran Art Gallery. I don't know how it ended up on my list. Ironically, it was the only place I went to that charged admission and it was the worst stop on my trip. For such a big museum, they didn't have much on display. Most of the exhibits were traveling shows. I don't know what's going there - most of the permanent collection was closed or stowed away and what they did have kinda sucked. American Impressionism? come on! Other than that, there were a bunch of second rate Dutch/Flemish paintings - No Rembrandt, no Reuben, no Vander whats-his-face.

I made a trip out to the National Cathedral but it was closed. I walked around the perimeter in the cold rain and I came upon the Bishop's Garden. I've really been into gardens recently and I've come to realize that DC has lots of them. And now, onto the FDR Memorial. When FDR first opened, everyone who went told me how amazing it was amazing. I first went there with some friend about 23 years ago. It's a very involving memorial that demands a certain amount of time and thought in order to appreciate it. It was pretty late and my friends wouldn't let me finish it. I vowed to come back to it and give it my full attention. It's wonderfully organic in structure and subtle yet quite poignant. Quite a contrast to the bombastic monstrosity that is the WWII memorial.

I had to answer one question before I left DC for good. Does the WWII Memorial break up the continuity of the Mall? When I went to memorial, it didn't obstruct any view from there, so I knew that I would have to see from the Lincoln Memorial in order to get a definitive answer. Lo and behold, the architects were smart enough to integrate it into the Mall and not superimpose it. I think all the complaints were politically motivated. I don't care for the monument itself but I can't agree with the biggest point of criticism it's been getting.

On my way down, I felt compelled to go to the Korean War Memorial. Another wonderful memorial. I often think about the war. Although I'm a pacifist and generally against war, I don't know how I feel about this one. I know that if the US didn't intervene, my life would be drastically different. I haven't resolved this one, probably never will.

When I was about to leave, I was too hungry to wait until I arrived in Baltimore so I went to search out this great pasta place in Adams Morgan - only to find it closed for vacation. I ended up going to a Mexican place right around the corner. After that filling meal, I got in my car and got lost - something I love doing. It's a great way to find new and unexpected places. You just have to make sure that you're nowhere near a bad neighborhood. I found a nice Italian park straight out of Hadrianople, the MEridian Hill Park. I found this gorgeous mansion built by Pope, the great architect of museums, mansions, and masonic temple(random). After I had my share of fun, I headed back to Baltimore.

There are a few things I haven't been able to do. I missed Preakness yet again. I would like to go before I feel that I am too old to enjoy such an event. I also wanted to come to DC in order to go ice skating in the Sculpture Garden. I walked past it once and it looked like a lot of fun, the atmosphere was ideal, and I've had this urge to go skating after a 12 year hiatus.

After many months, I finally got my car back from my mechanic. He's great but he keeps on giving me moonshine and I don't know what to do with it all. I drove straight to D.C. I wanted to knock off a couple of places off my list, but I spent too much time looking for parking. I decided on the National Archives.

National Archives is like America's version of the Sistine Chapel. You spend more time in lines than actually seeing what you came to see. I got in line at 4 and didn't leave the museum until 6. The first exhibit consisted of documents pertaining to the Treaty of Kanagawa. The warm and fuzzy treatment of these interactions between America and Japan just made me sick. The newfound trade relations initiated by the West eventually allowed the Japanese to become a military powerhouse which we all know resulted in the occupation of China and Korea and the persecution of its people. They eventually attacked the US and joined the Axis. This knowledge really kept me from feeling that this exhibit was worthwhile.

Now the rotunda that houses all those documents had an even bigger line. I was surprised to see the Articles of Confederacy there. I've always wanted to read through it but it was rolled up. I think it's funny that libertarians continue to insist on minimal government and points to our founding fathers. Of course, a cursory look at American history shows that this approach failed. What the founding fathers discovered was that a central authority was needed to make sure that the rights that were guarenteed to Americans are enforced. A lot of conservatives point to the unfair tax practices leading up to the revolution as inspiration for their policies. The early Americans were opposed more to the reasons they were taxed. King George III used taxation as a very effective means of quelling sedition. In other words, he set up formidable economic barriers to the freedom of expression. The exhibits do not mention that, only the fact that new taxes helped fuel the rebellion.

I had some time to kill before I had to be at the lecture by Ambassador Dennis Ross so I went across the street to the National Gallery's Sculpture Garden - a more fulfilling and gratifying experience than my time spent at the National Archives. Ironically, the works here have a much more modern bent than the ones at the Hirshhorn Museum's Sculpture Graden. Most of the works were minimalist with some elements of pop art thrown in. Now I don't appreciate Minimalism through visual media as much as I do the musical incarnation of it. You can listen to minimalist music passively and just veg out or you can become involved in its process, which doesn't take much more effort than just vegging out(unlike listening to Brahms or bebop, for instance). Either way, it can lull you into a hypnotic state. After a while, you notice nuances on a macro level and it's pretty cool because those phenomena aren't necessarily present on the surface. Minimalist art does the same thing but it's just not as fulfilling for me. These sculptures help change my ideas on it though.

Of course, it took me a while. The first sculpture is supposed to be a gigantic typewriter eraser but it looked like a fucking fallopian tube - if there's a movement in art I hate the most, it's pop art. Mark di Suvero's Aurora showed me that the maxim, "Never let them see you sweat" can be wrong. This brutal discordant twist of metal wears its virtuosity on its sleeve to the point that you can really see the effort the artist put into it and I really appreciated it. The next was a set of granite seats arranged kinda like Stonehendge. They were surprisingly comfortable. There was a family sitting in the other seats. They were on vacation, supposedly. The little boy was feeling neglected because the father was spacing out and the mother was on her cell phone calling into work. She even snapped at her son for interrupting her work and I just wanted to smack both parents upside the head.

It was Joel Shapiro's untitled work was the one that slowly started to persuade me that there just might be something to this minimalism shit. The dissonance between the rigidity of its bronze structure and its precarious pose was powerful. My favorite was Tony Smith's Moondog. The shadows that the sculpture creates in the sunlight is as vital to the work as the actual sculpture. It's so economical in that way and therefore makes the strongest case for minimalism I've ever seen. The very idea of a work of art where its environment and surroundings is an integral part of its aesthetic is pretty damn cool.

The biggest thing I noticed about the Sculpture Garden was that it gave off a vibe that one would never get anywhere in Baltimore - "You may chill here." There is no place within urban Baltimore where I'd feel completely comfortable spending some time outside while there are plenty of places like that in DC. Ok, one more trip to DC before I leave.

Power Plant Live

The Power Plant Live wasn't on my list but it's one of those places that young Baltimoreans feel obliged to check out at least once. The opportunity presented itself on my friend's birthday. After a very filling meal at Uno's, we proceeded to our first stop at the Power Plant - Howl at the Moon, a dueling piano bar. I have heard so much about it. There are two pianists ostage, with occasional support from a drummer and a bassist. They take requests and being such a popular place, they almost always bidding wars going on. The fun part is the fact that the competitive bidding is acted out musically. I was quite impressed by the vast knowledge of songs, their ability to change songs on a dime once the current one was outbidded, their ability to keep track in their heads, and mostly, their ability to fake through shit they didn't know. College/NFL fight songs showed their brilliance, which ended in a protracted bidding war against two mildly obscure schools, NC State and James Madison(with the latter winning). There were so many bachelors and bachelorettes that it almost seemed like a Moonie wedding reception. I didn't have as good of a time as my friends because the tone of the evening was a little too redneck for my tastes. It made me feel slightly uncomfortable. Quite amusing, nonetheless.

The rest of the night was much more conventional - drinking and clubbing. Now, I'm not the biggest fan of going out dancing. I don't engage in it unless I have had a fair amount to drink. It bores me, although alcohol does a lot to raise my boredom threshold. Due to the amount I ate, the alcohol had very little affect on me. Ballroom dancing is lot more interesting to me but I suck at it because I only do it once in a while and I don't have the time nor the will to do it regularly so I wouldn't suck at it. And I don't like sucking at things, probably the greatest source of stress in my life, the fear of sucking. At least at a club, you'll be fine just from letting yourself go and having at least a fundamental sense of rhythm. There's always a slew of jackasses who look worse than you. Still, it's boring to me. I had a good time, though.

A First

A friend of mine asked me if I wanted to go out on a former student's sailboat. The only obstacle was that I was scheduled for work. I did something I've never done before - I called in sick. We drove to Annapolis and saw the beautiful 30 foot catamaran in which we were about to spend the better part of the day. The weather was perfect. Food and beer were plentiful. The company was great. More wind would have made things more exciting. The most intriguing aspect of the day was noticing the subtle differences of people who only live like 30 miles away from us. Certain things were integral parts of their lives due to the social stratum they occupy and their surroundings. They are all adept on boats to a degree that I joked with the other landlubber with us, a musician, "So this is what we sound like to non-musicians." Also, the Naval Academy has such a large presence in Annapolis that I saw some unexpected manifestations of this town/gown relationship. All in all, a very eventful and illuminating trip.

Weird Moment of the Week

A friend of mine was teaching lessons. One of her students is a quite problematic prodigy. Everyone has to sign in for each lesson. The student decided to sign in using my name. When confronted about it, she mentioned that she just made up the name on the spot.

Like other left-leaning cities, Baltimore has a vocal segment of the population that is against corporations taking over the city. People are afraid that family owned businesses will suffer greatly from gentrification. While that is a valid concern, why do I see way too many vacant storefronts downtown? A lot of these businesses aren't worth saving. O'Malley's getting a lot of flak for wooing Starbucks. There really aren't any good cafes in Baltimore, especially the homegrown kind. There's Donna's but it's more of a restaurant. Starbucks has no competition to worry about. There aren't any places where you can get coffee and sit around studying, doing work without being bothered by the staff. There is no supermarket downtown, which makes grocery shopping a royal pain in the ass for people without cars(It's of no help that the public transportation system sucks). One is being built on Charles Street, about 4-5 blocks south of me. Apparently, it's getting stiff opposition. There are many people who are hell bent in keeping this city in its mediocre state. I'm getting too upset talking about this.....

Counting the Days

Now that I have at most, two more weeks in this area, I made a list of places to go to, things to do before I leave here. I'll update you on how things are going.

Ladew Gardens
Sherwood Gardens
Fort McHenry
Basilica
Great Blacks in Wax Museum
Corcoran Gallery
Library of Congress
National Archives
National Cathedral
Jewish Museum(Baltimore and DC)
Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens
Annapolis
Eastern Shore
UPenn Anthropology Museum
Philadelphia Art Museum

Restaurants:
Samos
Bicycle
Marticks
Vespa
Helen's Garden
Andy Nelson's Barbeque
Della Notte