My mother’s poetry

 

A piece entitled My Mother, My Scalp

Aging parents

Visiting my mom just after my dad passed. Everybody who gets older goes through this; nevertheless, I find it hard to process in the sense I want to slow time down. Experience a food — or rather, sustenance? Something that requires much time for its proper digestion…?

 #familylife #agingparents #gettingolder #palliativecare

Full video (it’s very short) at YouTube: https://youtube.com/shorts/qUztV2_ZK8A?feature=share

Friendly cats?

Which cat is friendliest? #feralcats #farmcats #semiwildanimals #farmlife #countryside #skittishcats

Chronicles of Earthly Change

Chronicles of Earthly Change  — a personal view of climate change 

The Highly Illustrated Screenplay Novel

 A few years ago, Tom Dooley, editor of the online literary magazine Eclectica, was kind enough to publish one of my novels, a historical work entitled The Business Army. It’s about an attempt to engineer a fascist takeover in America. It’s based on fact.

I’m reworking the project, since it’s become more timely than ever.

The novel exists in two versions: as a conventional text only work, and as a new kind of hybrid graphic novel I call the illustrated screenplay novel.

To read the conventional version, go here: https://www.eclectica.org/v23n2/harvor.html

(Note: I have other unpublished fiction mss., including a historical novel about Juno Beach.)

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Pitch:

Economic injustice is everywhere. The wealthy have too much, the poor too little. Unemployment is massive, and political violence is on the rise. In the midst of all this, powerful elites decide that the sitting president is too feeble to govern and democracy itself is "a problem".

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OUTLINE – THE BUSINESS ARMY

Below are the opening pages of THE BUSINESS ARMY. This is a carefully researched yet quick-paced novel about one of the most interesting episodes of the Great Depression: the "Business Plot" against Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The novel itself is unique. It comes in both a conventional format, and also as a form of illustrated novel I call a "screenplay module novel". (It is linked to other novel projects of mine, but stands on its own as an independent manuscript.)

The novel centers on two figures: Gerald MacGuire -- an anxious, insecure, yet highly ambitious junior broker on Wall Street; just the sort of person willing to compromise his morals to get ahead -- and Smedely Darlington Butler, a Marine general who knew war but also realized the ways in which it was often manipulated by powerful interests in order to advance their own agenda ... not democracy or political ideals.

About myself: I'm an artist, writer and occasional musician/movie-maker living in South Korea. I've published in several journals, including PACIFISM21, DARK SKY, THE BROOKLYN RAIL, ECLECTICA, THE PURITAN, THIS MAGAZINE, etc. I've written and staged two plays, had films screened internationally, have had group and solo shows of my art, and had work broadcast (radio). Academically, I've written on new media, graphic fiction, Yoon Heung-gil and Thomas De Quincey, presenting papers (in person) in Berlin, Oxford, Osaka and Indonesia (via Skype in Helsinki, Kuala Lumpur and Madrid).

Finn Harvor

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Il y a quelques années, Tom Dooley chez Eclectica a eu la gentillesse de publier un de mes romans, un ouvrage historique intitulé The Business Army. Il s’agit d’une tentative d’organiser une prise de pouvoir fasciste en Amérique. C’est basé sur des faits.

Je retravaille le projet, car il est plus que jamais d’actualité.

Le roman existe en deux versions : en tant qu'œuvre conventionnelle uniquement textuelle et en tant que nouveau type de roman graphique hybride que j'appelle le roman de scénario illustré.

Pour lire la version conventionnelle, rendez-vous ici : https://www.eclectica.org/v23n2/harvor.html

(Remarque : j'ai d'autres textes de fiction inédits, notamment un roman historique sur Plage Juno.)

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Synopsis:

L'injustice économique est partout. Les riches ont trop, les pauvres trop peu. Le chômage est massif et la violence politique augmente. Au milieu de tout cela, des élites puissantes décident que le président en exercice est trop faible pour gouverner et que la démocratie elle-même est « un problème ».

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L’ARMÉE D’AFFAIRES

Vous trouverez ci-dessous les premières pages de THE BUSINESS ARMY. Il s'agit d'un roman soigneusement étudié mais au rythme rapide, sur l'un des épisodes les plus intéressants de la Grande Dépression : le « complot commercial » contre Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Le roman lui-même est unique. Il se présente à la fois sous un format conventionnel et également sous une forme de roman illustré que j'appelle un « roman à module de scénario ». (Il est lié à d’autres de mes projets de roman, mais constitue à lui seul un manuscrit indépendant.)

Le roman est centré sur deux personnages : Gerald MacGuire, un courtier junior anxieux, peu sûr de lui, mais très ambitieux à Wall Street ; juste le genre de personne prête à compromettre sa moralité pour aller de l'avant - et Smedely Darlington Butler, un général de la Marine qui connaissait la guerre mais qui a également réalisé à quel point elle était souvent manipulée par des intérêts puissants afin de faire avancer leur propre agenda... pas cette démocratie ou ces idéaux politiques.

À propos de moi : je suis un artiste, un écrivain et un musicien/cinéaste occasionnel vivant en Corée du Sud. J'ai publié dans plusieurs revues, dont PACIFISM21, DARK SKY, THE BROOKLYN RAIL, ECLECTICA, THE PURITAN, THIS MAGAZINE, etc. J'ai écrit et mis en scène deux pièces de théâtre, projeté des films à l'international, présenté des expositions collectives et personnelles de mes art et faire diffuser des œuvres (radio). Sur le plan académique, j'ai écrit sur les nouveaux médias, la fiction graphique, Yoon Heung-gil et Thomas De Quincey, présentant des articles (en personne) à Berlin, Oxford, Osaka et en Indonésie (via Skype à Helsinki, Kuala Lumpur et Madrid).

Finn Harvor 

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Jangma in September?!

Jangma in September?!

Life Cycles…

 The deaths of individual loved ones are very hard to come to terms with, but eventually we do. But how about the deaths of all?

#mortality #death #grieving #deathsoflovedones

Full video at YouTube: Life Cycles Individually, Life Cycles Collectively

youtu.be/C8_vCUoNPvY

September Jangma?

Jangma usually arrives in June or July. This year, it’s on repeat…

Climate Change

 Endless Summer: How weather patterns are heating up in Asia #climatechan... https://youtube.com/shorts/zHZ4KgMAwsQ?si=-bKQGxtkUpIuiEKx via @YouTube .

Climate change is here. If you live in Canada or the northern US, you haven’t felt the full brunt of it. But you will.

#GlobalWarming #ClimateCrisis #climatechange

Seoul

 The Han River Bridge 

Seoul

 33 degrees Celsius at the end of August 

Toronto

 Near Front 

Toronto

 CondoLand 

Toronto

 King Station 

Wakefield

 

The World…

Happy that my moviepoem “The World As It Is …. Now” was just selected by Almaty Underground Screening Series via FilmFreeway.com

This part of a much larger series on 21st C society tentatively titled Muddernity.

If curious, YouTube link: https://youtu.be/etylxRUePZ8?si=i6iOW29WvR3kn7JN

Criticism and principle

Good piece by Daniel Green on essay collections by Lauren Oyler and Becca Rothfeld, which have been published in the larger context of a (general) tendency in contemporary criticism toward blandness. 

Green’s essay highlights the ways in which Oyler and Rothfeld intermingle critical assessment with personal confession. This is a trend that really started to gain traction in the 1990s, and it shows no signs of going away.

Green:

But it would not really be accurate to call either No Judgment or All Things are Too Small examples of personal writing above all. Both books belong to what is now called cultural criticism, by self-identification and by a fair accounting of the subjects they address. This classification seems to fit because of the wide range of cultural objects covered (most of the essays could not properly be called "literary criticism" since works of literature are only occasionally their focus) and because ultimately each of these critics is most concerned with understanding the cultural significance of the subjects they examine, not their value as aesthetic expressions. This at first seems paradoxical given both writers' penchant for making and valorizing judgments, but the essays included in Rothfeld's book are pretty consistent with her approach elsewhere, and even Oyler's most infamous negative reviews often wander away from pure aesthetic analysis, while in other essays she is as likely to consider trends and tendencies as closely assess individual works. 

Another trend that’s emerged (and that Oyler and Rothfeld resist) is an emphasis on moral judgments — moral judgments grounded in the philosophy we should be nice to (authorial) others. This has led to a movement in review discourse away from harsh criticism. Parallel with this has been moral judgment based on the perceived personality of the author/ artist.

This context now exists everywhere. But it’s particularly acute in some national literatures. The one I’m most familiar with is Anglo Canadian literature (I read French and am not excluding it; but lettres québécoises are very much ignored by the vast majority in Cdn publishing). This trend toward studious blandness has many causes; the cutbacks in book sections sure don’t help. But in recent decades there’ve also been movements (feminism, diversity, queerness, etc.) that have shifted the centre of crit discourse (which is fine) but also shut down critiques that offend people’s feelings (more problematic). 

A very, very good example of this is the extraordinary controversy surrounding the actions of Alice Munro. What we’re witnessing (in real time, as they say on news channels) is the immolation of a writer’s body of work because she, Munro, was complicit in hiding the molestation of her youngest daughter. The issue that I think needs discussing is the book review/ academic crit industry in Canada was also frequently complicit in this coverup. 

Munro’s place in the canon has shifted dramatically in one week. But the journalists who were also complicit in this whole sad story are furiously , passively aggressive silent, hoping the career damage doesn’t spread too far; the reputation of Munro’s second husband (who committed the crimes) was protected by some of the same journos who are now wrapping themselves in flags of morality. 

A critical culture based on feelings rather than articulated aesthetic standards and principles can behave in highly unpredictable fashions. 

Trump, every time he thinks he’ll lose

 

Peace Culture

 

WHY, THE VIOLENT CULTURE?

This project merges with several other anti war projects I’ve been working on, but places more emphasis on the importance— that is, the benefit — of gaining pleasure from quotation life.

Full video at YouTube: The Drama of Peace (statement): youtu.be/vcS6aGggT1k

Well, America