looosey

[looosey]

Eloranta Day 25

I owe it to myself and my challenging month to continue training hard during my adult career life in both choreography and hip hop.

I have so many exercises to work with now, not just relearning and cleaning choreo. But also drilling floor work like side kicks and also house moves like side walks. Locking moves like the scooby doo? Also the four corners exercise where you focus on isolations, musicality, jacking, and floor work in each corner for example. Or even just grooving to the music with bounces rocks rolls and waves.

[looosey]

Eloranta Day 24

How did we get hereeee to day 24?

So I am 4 days deep into a 5 day street dance intensive by Versa Style LA that I saw advertised on a poster in front of the Movement Lifestyle bathroom.

In some ways this is the climax of my 2 months of Eloranta training so far: 7 hours a day (10 a.m. to 5 p.m.) of drilling hip hop fundamentals. I could write pages about the journey my body is going through, the bruises on my shoulders from my first dive into proper floorwork. The pulling sensation on my lats from the repeated locking and whacking motions. The grumbling of my stomach after every break, because my diet which is designed to be high fiber and high protein simply doesn't provide enough calories for the amount of dancing I am doing. The craving for a caffeine hit at 12 p.m. which is a sign that I've been leaning too heavily on the program's redbull sponsorship every lunch time.

But what I want to write about most right now is beyond the physical realm of how Versa Style has pushed me, but a very emotional human aspect. I walk into the studio and the members of the community here greet me first by name. They remember first! After meeting a single time! And they are cheerful and fearless in greeting me. Even though I am new and a visitor, and may only be here just for the week. I feel so welcomed in this space in a way I've never ever in my whole dance journey felt in Boston.

And the kids here are talented and hungry and humble. And a lot of their phenomenal attitude I think is owed to the leadership of Miss Funk and Breeze-lee, a Latino married dancer couple in their early fourties, who founded the company exactly 20 years ago, with a mission to grow a community/family of dancers who would then grow to spread the love and joy. Their "why" is so clear, and it really hits me hard when I see it through their actions: they keep their costs low for the intensive, their youth training program and their outreach class, instead relying on grants to pay their staff dancers and teachers. A meager $40 a month for their program for 16-22 year olds, a team which will meet for over 5 hours a week, 3 of which are personalized training.

Something Miss Funk says every day is, "thank you for trusting us with your time and energy," and I realized only when hearing this that it is true: i do trust them, more and more, day by day, for every day I am wowed by this group of people and what they've created here in LA with dance. On the flip side, I realized there are spaces in Boston I trust less with my time, for I have experienced a new standard for teaching and training here in LA. I will have to grapple with this when I get back home!

For now I have homework and that is to read: Cant Stop Wont Stop by Jeff Chang.

[looosey]

Eloranta Day 8: Training Smart and Other Resources

Yesterday after my freestyle class with SuperDave, I asked him a very simple question: how should I practice by myself. He said I was going to hate the answer, and I knew almost instantly what it was.

Record myself.

The full answer: record yourself, watch it, remember what FEELING you were going for, repeat but with improvements. The vocabulary will come from drilling foundations, but only intentional freestyle training can improve freestyle.

Here in LA, I am fortunate enough to say my most defining limit in terms of training this month is my own stamina. Thus, I was wondering what optimized training would look like. And I rly do think it is timely monitoring and feedback!

So I will definitely clean through my dance videos every night before bed, as a supplement to my doomscrolling.

A boon of my doomscrolling however, was discovering how much educational dance content exists. Like from old steezy videos, to independent creators, to professionals like Antoine Troupe.

In general, improving my musicality by 1% everyday is generally the goal. Moving body first to the music, without the brain working overtime.

[looosey]

Eloranta Day 6: Embracing Negative Feelings

As part of the pursuit of abnormal opportunities, I have killed my anxiety receptors. Thus, for years I have not been afraid of putting myself in spaces where others would feel anxious. However, I'm now realizing that this fearlessness is closely tied with my dislike of monitoring my own dance videos: i.e. it's easier to be less self-conscious when you choose not to perceive yourself accurately.

Delulu. I am delulu about my dance skill sometimes.

Monitoring has meant rooting myself in the reality of my dance skills. And boyyyy is it hard to be real with myself. Here are my realizations from the first week, some is not just about myself:

I am not listening to the music. Once the music is on I need to be counted in almost every class, because I don't know these songs and I couldn't hum for you by memory what I'm dancing to. In fact, I can't tell you what sound in the music I'm dancing to, and now that I think about it, it's probably because I'm used to dancing evenly to counts in simpler choreo. Once I start feeling the music more, I think it'll help me connect move to move, as well as start putting in some of that musicality.

I need to know what I like and dislike in dance and music. That way I can play up the parts I really feel. Earlier this semester I said I knew I was growing out of my previous music taste, but I never put in the real work of finding music I was into. I think I like house music, and some slower songs from Billie Eilish, Laufey... I like some old school hip hop sounds. I like doja cat's music... starting simple.

I am an intermediate dancer. Okay, so I'm not sure if it's a good idea to plaster this label on myself. However, the reason it has been useful for me, is because the classes at Movement Lifestyle are labeled as either beginner/int or int/advanced. And I am definitely in the space where I can learn from either. When I asked Kat Jones which bin I should focus on, she said definitely jump into the challenging classes, but really look for good teachers. Which brought me to wonder what a class really dedicated to leveling up intermediate dancers would look like.

Good dancers have so much control of their bodies. Whether it's when I'm in choreo class or my freestyle class, I've watched dancers hit every single sound with some part of their body, with so much control. It's unbelievable. I need to just lock myself in a studio some time and work on bringing my waves up to speed. Or creating tutting sequences on the fly. Isolations and body control. Isolations and body control.

Literal Plans for the future:

Finish this two week unlimited strong. 2 classes a day.

Rest and do a lot of homework practices, in the house studio.

Then start the Versa Style Street Dance intensive!

Dance Metrics for the future:

Dance old school like the Singletarys.

Dance with control like Shaun E.

Develop four textures and pull from them.

Focus on the music, and make a point of recalling the melody of the songs I'm dancing to.

[looosey]

Eloranta: Day 2

The price of freedom is $1308.

$1300 for the rental car.

$6 for the nitro oat latte.

$2 for street parking.

And thus, I'm plugged in and connected to wifi, away from the grimy floors of the dance commune I call home. My socks are still sticky and blackened, hidden in my white shoes. My shiny white Jeep is parked approximately 18 inches from the curb, and I paid a parking meter with my credit card, for the first time in my life. I was so nervous that before I left the air conditioned haven of my car, supplied by $5/gal gas, I searched up "how to pay a parking meter."

All of my 1 month trips have built up to this month. First in Italy, then Korea, then London. But now, I am free to make major financial decisions, to drive, plan my day. And still at the end of the day, I am to produce a body of knowledge on the topic of dance in LA. Whereas I entered university four years ago, afraid to leave my own dorm room without a plan, I have come so far: and now I find myself parallel parking in a North Hollywood downtown street by myself for a month. I'm careful and anxious. I'm sitting and sipping a $5.25 nitro oat latte, which is approximately $2 cheaper than an espresso oat latte.

Soul searching. Developing. Dancing. Asking questions.Finding the right people. Being clever with the places I spend my time. Reading.

For a proper update, yesterday, I traveled for 13 hrs from Inman Square to Burbank, and then took two back-to-back choreo classes. By the middle of my second class, it was almost 22 hrs from the beginning of my travels, and my day's consumption of a cream cheese bagel and a Trader Joe's butter chicken meal was failing me.

First class: Max Pham. His choreo, designed for the stage, was so precise, and clever (matching rhythms and sounds so fluidly yet not at all obvious). Thankfully, I never got lost during the class, which I thank my three years of training for. However, I was so far from target, which gave me more appreciation for this opportunity: I felt too sharp and light, rigid and brittle in comparison with the LA majority, whose motions were heavy and rubbery, small and exact. And yet, people were making friends and smiling throughout the class.

Second class: Shaun Evaristo. Three words: I felt something. I paid the premium of $25 on top of my 2 week unlimited to take his class, which is a fiscally ridiculous decision. However, I had watched the Steezy spotlight of him, which called him one of the best dance teachers to grace the LA community. Thus, I wrote this one off as a business expense. Anddddddddddddd...

It was worth it! The choreo was amazing. I've never seen someone dance like that in my life, in person. He made choreo for himself, to feel the music, and it was an honor for me to live that myself. The way he checked in on us throughout the class, using his temperature checks to pace his teaching. It made all of us feel seen. It was the first time ever that I had felt soooo emotional (emotionally invested, or just emotional I'm not sure) while dancing, and I don't think all of that was pure delusion.

When I came back home, I got to meet some of the other girls living in the commune. It is fair to say I am the most novice to dance in this group, which is fair: coming to LA with no connections to stay with but a hard commitment to training and auditioning is not the reality of many hobbyists. Once again, I am committed to learning as much as I can this month. If you're in LA this July, let's dance!!

[looosey]

Literary London: How Do I Love Thee?

"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways." -- Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806 – 1861) in Sonnet 43

I love love. And I am inspired when I read about love and passion, because I truly think it is the purpose of human life: to love and be loved.

"I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight"

Long distance is quite hard, but I feel okay still, knowing that it is not out of sight out of mind for either of us.

The first week of class, a group of us were on our way from lunch to the outing for the day, perhaps it was Westminster Abbey or even Victoria & Albert, when one of my classmates was lamenting about how much she missed her boyfriend. "I just want him to be here. Can't he just fly over? I don't understand." And I thought this was so precious, and it made me reminiscent of a time I used to feel that fiery. When I asked her, how long they'd been dating, she said one month. That made sense. But inspired by this event and the cuteness of irrationality, I asked my boyfriend the same question on a Friday night: "sure you can't come to London?" which he answered with "I'm down."

So fast forward a week, he arrived at Heathrow the next Thursday, during our long weekend. And because he could only stay for three days and two nights, I turned into a Type A planner and planned out our London date itinerary, which I present to you as a mapping project and walking tour of sorts!

Theatre Night Friday

08:20 Meet at Tottenham Court Road

09:00 Buns from Home for breakfast (at Camden)

09:30 Jetlag naptime

12:00 Camden market for lunch

13:30 Sainsbury, Boots and Thriftshop in Camden

15:30 Check-in at Vauxhall AirBnb

16:30 Perfume shopping at Bloom Scent at Covent Garden

17:00 Dinner at UKIYO Handroll Bar at Covent Garden

18:30 Earl Grey Tea at Caffè Concerto

19:00 Walking through Chinatown

19:30 Les Misérables at Sondheim Theatre

22:00 Back to AirBnb

Eating Tour Saturday

10:00 Wakeup and eat Sainsbury strawberries with smoothie and Kefir drink

11:30 Borough market's Monmouth coffee, Ginger Pig sausage rolls, hot mulled fig drink, and Bread Ahead Creme brulee donut

13:00 Southwark cathedral (mostly for the restroom)

14:00 Spitalfield market shopping, char siu rice roll at ricebrother for lunch

15:00 Brick lane vintage shops window shopping

19:00 Soho Gymshark + shoe shopping + pictures at the Soho Life Four Cuts photobooth

19:30 Dinner at Kanishka Soho

21:00 Humble Crumble at Covent Garden

22:00 Drinks at a pub

24:00 Back to AirBnb

Checkout Sunday

08:30 Wakeup

09:30 Checkout Airbnb

10:00 Full English breakfast near

11:00 Say good bye at Tottenham Court Station!!

From this experience, I am, number one, so grateful to the classmate who inspired me to ask my boyfriend to come here. Also, it was so fun to visit the city with my number one person, and every hour was super precious. We also got such pretty photos from the photobooth, which I can't share here, but I highly recommend going when you're in soho! Lastly, I'm so grateful to my boyfriend, who was down to share such a wonderful experience with me! This weekend was so amazing, I wish to remember it forever!!!

[looosey]

Literary London: English Things to try in England

As an American, I have compiled some foods I have seen I must try while being in London!

Welsh Cake

Haggis

Whiskey

Chelsea Bun

Parmo

Cumberland Sausage

Cornish Pasty

Yorkshire Pudding

Fish and Chips

Sunday Roast

British-Indian Food

Chicken shops

[looosey]

Literary London: A Brief History of Britain

Literary London is a month intensive on all of English (english meaning british) literature, and I thought that I would've benefitted from a better historical understanding of the place first and foremost. Because I suggested it myself, this journal entry will be my notes on the youtube video: "History of Britain in 20 Minutes" by A.J. Merrick. Feel free to follow along!

UK: England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland

2500 BCE pre-Celtic Beaker Culture (ceramics), Stonehenge calendar

500 BCE Celtic tribes from the continent come and spread over entire island

40 CE Romans invade England and Wales and establish "Caledonia," and add "Britannia" to Roman Empire

410 CE, Romans leave and Germanic tribes (Anglos, Saxons, etc) invade and establish seven kingdoms

800 CE: battles and break up the kingdom + Vikings come and conquer, and battle and conquer

900 CE: Anglo-saxons beat the last of Vikings and establish first king

1000 CE: Danish briefly takeover (Norse language), then the Welsh Kingdom takes over, but Welsh king was killed

1066 CE: Battle of Hastings

1100 CE: Henry the II starts beef with france

1200 CE: Magna Carta, even the king are subject to the law

1300 CE: Scotland struggles but maintains independence, scotland king becomes ruler of france?

1300 CE: Britain claims france in 100 years war?

1377 CE: King Edward dies and House of York and Lancaster beef for the throne

1450 CE: War of roses between the two houses

1480 CE: Tudor England,

1530 CE: Henry VIII splits with the church for his Divorce, gave Wales representation, controls some of Ireland, kills 100s of people in paranoia

1580 CE: During Queen Elizabeth I's rule, the most powerful kingdom is Spanish Kingdom, and Spanish and England start battling, William Shakespeare is born

1603 CE: James I of England from Scotland takes over after Elizabeth dies

1607 CE: Jamestown, and other colonies, and start of Translantic Slave trade (for three hundred years)

1640 CE: Charles I, Ireland land just given to rich owners, English Civil War, Charles is killed and Oliver Cromwell dissolves monarchy

1645 CE: Charles II restores monarchy, wife introduces tea

1680 CE: Glorious Revolution, protestant William III invades and takes throne from unpopular catholic king James II

1700 CE: United Kingdom, union of England and Scotland, end of the House of Stuarts as King George I takes throne

1760 CE: Several European wars (War of Spanish Succession, 7 years), got more land in America, and debt (taxes the colonies)

1776 CE: American War of Independence

East Indian Company, high trade, and growing opium in Bengal

1770 CE: James Cooke colonizes Australia, sends convicts

1810 CE: Napoleon Bonaparte tries to invade Britain and fails

Victorian Era

1845 CE: potato famine in Ireland, which had joined England but were forced to export all they had

1860 CE: Revolt of workers in Company fail in India, thus England takes over the company at Queen Victoria's rule

Industrial Revolution: train, steam engine, telegraph, sewage

Education and industry company

Fish and Chips on the rise

1880 CE: Europeans try to divide Africa amongst themselves, and Britain uses concentration camps against the women and children in South African Dutch settlers who resisted

1914 CE: early player of First World War

1921 CE: height of English empire, and Ireland became free

1942 CE: Second World War II, Winston Churchill led to Allied victory, Alan Turing decoded scripts, India declared Independence (Mahatma Gandhi), Commonwealth of Nations for 53 members of the old colonized nations

1997 CE: Hong Kong was their last colony, returned to China

2016: 52% voted and left the European Union

[looosey]

London Theatre Review: Les Misérables (Sondheim Theatre)

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5/5)

Plot: It's the early 1800's in France, tens of years after the French Revolution during a time of economic hardship and opposition towards the monarchy. Jean Valjean was jailed for 20 years for stealing a piece of bread, in his youth. Upon a stranger's act of kindness is able to build a life for himself, he breaks the parole order upon he was released. He gets old and established, comes into contact with a poor young woman (a harlot) in the most unfortunate of circumstances. Promising to raise the child of the harlot as his own, he lives as the French Revolution unfolds, and the viewers get to watch as the characters decide what it is they're willing to die fighting for.

My thoughts:

Oh wow... standing ovation! Standing ovation! Applause, applause!!! Les Mis was the most incredible performance that I've watched live, maybe ever!

First of all, the acting and singing were incredible. Jean Valjean's full immersion into the character and Éponine's voice, so strong yet feminine, and the little boy, his cheekiness till the end. Many a times I got chills, with the hairs rising on my cheeks, and many more times I got moved, with tears pooling in my eyes. Oh wowwwwww....

The staging as well, the scene where the Inspector falls in the water, and how he moves into the projection of rising water behind him, is so genius. I was so moved by the songs themselves as well, I will be listening to "I Dreamed a Dream," "Do You Hear the People Sing?," as well as "On My Own" on rotation! At no point did I lose trust in the ability of the performers, they're program was so tight and rich.

"Master of the House," however, was my favorite scene in the musical! The innkeeper couple (that owns Corvette in her mother's absence) are the most hilarious characters, and every action they do is so perfectly scum-of-the-earth greedy and hateful. However, far from just serving as a comedic relief, they are the underlying baseline of bad upon which rests the musical's discussion of good vs. bad people.

I found the main theme of this musical to be: an act of kindness is very powerful and can touch the hearts of both "evil" and "good" people, and through them spread more acts of kindness. For example, Jean Valjean is touched by the Priest's generosity even when he stole from the church, the harlot (Cosette's mom) is cornered to a desperate life of prostitution after bullied and fired from her previous job but dies in the care of Jean Valjean, Jean also takes care of Cosette and even goes into barricade to save her lover who in turn pledges to protect her forever. He is a propagator of good in his lifetime, ever since he was touched by the Priest.

And thus, the musical pushes its viewers to be more sympathetic of the poor and dishonorable (i.e. convicts and sex-workers), and to understand that difficult circumstances (both the law and other people) might push any good person to this state. Going back to the innkeeper couple, they remain constantly evil, deceptive thieves and nuisances to Jean Valjean throughout the musical, representing a force of evil that is perfectly comfortable in their evil ways, creating difficult circumstances for the people around them. In the words of J. Cole: don't save them, they don't wanna be saved.

In a completely selfish turn of thoughts, I must learn from the way this performance moved me, to take to my own performance directing in dance. In my very literal observations, I believe it is the character's immersion and acting, how realistic their response is to the plot: each line and stage action felt rooted in realism, like as if despite every line being sung, the production was never clouded by some writer or director's desire to make art. And second of all, I think the blocking was good at directing the view of the audience: up! Center! Everywhere! I think, it'll be key to think about where I want people to look.

In conclusion, this performance was super inspiring to me, and I recommend everyone go watch it as soon as possible!!!

[looosey]

#pbcore

Dog Owners Wearing Clothes Made From Their Pet’s Fur

[looosey]

London Theater Review: Giselle at London Coliseum (English National Ballet)

Spoiler Alert: I expose the plot but not the ending?

Plot: Giselle is a beautiful, well-loved peasant girl, who is wooed by a mysterious new stranger. He happens to be a prince, who is already engaged to another woman! In Act 1, this truth is revealed by another man from Giselle's village who loves her, which shocks her to death. Act 2, is a mystical magical second half, of lovely choreographed dancing of the nymph-like ghosts of women who died before they were wed. The lovers reunite in Giselle's ghost form, as she strives to protect their love.

My thoughts

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ (3.5/5)

The beginning dragged, with relatively little dancing, and mostly silent gesturing, which I suppose is acting, but perhaps I am not cultured enough to be entertained by such. I sleepily missed most of the first 20 minutes of plot. Giselle was elegant and graceful, and Oriana and I silently screamed like little girls at the Prince and Giselle's first meeting: as they did their hesitant dance of the first touch.

I thought the second half was magnificent though. The perfect formation of the ghost girls, and the movement of their formations. The powerful moves of the ballerino, as seen in the airtime of his jumps and the speed of his spins and twirls. I think ballet dance for me is much more entertaining if it leans into the sheer strength and athleticism of the dancer, making it closer to contemporary dance. Additionally there were some clever ideas, such as the freezing of dancers to indicate the stopping of time, that I thought were inspiring.

[looosey]

London Theater Review: Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club (Playhouse Theatre)

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ (3/5)

First, the production house was excellent at building up the atmosphere even before the show, with a glittery underground entrance, shots of alcohol, and dancers at the lobby. The MC character, pictured above, was an absolutely incredible entertainer, and the plot moved along quickly. The kit kat dances scenes were lewd at times but exactly what the audience came for, in fact, I was shocked at how little dirty dancing there was in the show.

Spoiler alert: I semi-reveal the plot!

The plot itself follows an American(!!) novelist who moves to Berlin in the early twentieth century, in search for a story. Falls in love with a young female dancer from the Kit Kat Club in Berlin, which is at the time of writing and adaptation this musical in the 50s-60s was totally fictional! [1] Act 1 is celebrates the hedonism and carefree joy of Berlin and the subsequent weakness in the face of temptation seen from the main characters. A shocking twist is revealed, and Act 2 is a drop in temperature, grey suits in complete orchestrated order: inspiring me in terms of staging and blocking a dance piece.

Walking home, I was totally exhausted, listening half-heartedly to Oriana wonder out loud what it was that made the whole shebang slightly underwhelming. With a good nights sleep I thought it over. I don't personally find the plot twist cheap--I think they properly got me, as I had enough historical hints along the way for what was coming. Instead, I feel that the character of Sally, I didn't not feel enough sympathy for, and when she aborted the baby saying it would be a sad life for the baby to know their parents only stayed together for the baby's conception, I believed her, but also I don't think that was truly her only reason for turning back to Berlin.

Additionally, the sudden and complete death of the Kit Kat club and all of its dancers, without any knowledge of how it died or breathed in secret made the story feel incomplete. All in all, the musical left something more to be desired plot-wise. Additionally, I had held my expectations way too high for the dance aspect, as a dancer myself. I had expected to learn something from the performers of London, but thought that the stage presence was the saving grace, best of whom was the MC, and the choreographed sections themselves were okay: the timing was good, but the moves and lines of their arms and legs were not precise made clear when they got to the waacking section. I just know a Los Angeles production of just the dance parts (I cannot promise the German accents) would eat down. But here in London I would have to wait for Giselle, the ballet, to satiate my dance hunger.

[1] Since the musicals first runs on Broadway in 1966, two Berliners established a physical sex-positive nightclub called KitKatClub in 1994. Now famous.

[looosey]

Literary London: the Modern Life of a Socialite pt. 2

A non-fiction piece.

Reading Mrs. Dalloway was very relevant for my travels here in London, a city full of luxurious temptations that would treat my wallet quite poorly. Mrs. Dalloway is a book about a woman, born into a plain middleclass upbringing, who marries into a high social class, and loves the lifestyle. The whole book follows a day in her life, as she is throwing Her party, where everyone will have no choice but to see how Born-to-Be-a-Wonderful-Host she is.

In Korean there is a slang that would be used to call this set of symptoms: 된장녀 (doen-jang-nyeo), a pejorative neologism for a girl who desires, buys, and flaunts luxury items, without the means to pay for it herself (hence the connection with "gold diggers"). The wikipedia definition goes further to say, she will often pinch pennies on basics in order to afford "conspicuous luxuries." I might just be a 된장녀, which is concerning! I have to remind myself that I am living in London for a month, and cannot spend like I'm on vacation for a week every week, or else I'll have to find work first thing when I return to campus!

To explain my first point about Mrs. Dalloway relevance to today, I argue that if born in my generation, Mrs. Dalloway would've been an influencer to a whole market of TikTok viewers: "how to attract provider men," "how to manifest your dream life," "how to build an elegant Instagram feed," "how to look expensive (cheap and affordable!)." More relevant to me, Mrs. Dalloway represents a desire for seeing and having nice things, and mingling with important people, which is viewed by other characters in the book as snobbish and out of touch with the reality of the general population.

Being in Soho, Covent Garden, Piccadilly, and many markets, and seeing marble statues, gold stitching on historical fabrics, the glittering diamonds of the crown jewels, the neurons in this same greedy part of my brain fires so much more often. This journal entry will be dedicated to all of the luxuries, London specific, that have tempted me successfully. This is a slightly shameful haul.

1. Coffee

I am addicted, and I have one a day, either at home or at a cafe or both. The alternative milk here is at no additional cost, which makes everything come out to about 3.8 pounds on average for a flat white! This is a steal, in comparison to American coffee spots! Or so I tell myself.

2. Nice Dinners

Namaaste Kitchen ⭐⭐⭐ (2.5/5)

Dishoom ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5/5)

Ukiyo Handroll Bar ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5/5)

Blacklock ⭐⭐⭐⭐(4/5)

Kanishka ⭐⭐⭐⭐(4.5/5)

3. Fancy Dresses

OddMuse: These are beautiful dresses, more expensive than any dress I own, but made out of cheap synthetic fabric. They have a beautiful chic storefront in Covent Garden, and I'm still on the fence about whether I will return these!!

4. 100% Wool

So the wool coat was a purchase I made for my own Christmas gift, on 40% off at Aritizia before I left for London. Was the three piece suit necessary? It might have to be the suit I wear to my own wedding at this point.

5. Afternoon Tea, English Breakfast

Clotted cream is delicious. Scones are in fact dry, but with cream and jam are delicious. Finger sandwiches are delicious. Blood sausages are okay. Those scrambled eggs are delicious. Flat whites are delicious.

6. Performances

From Left to Right: The Kit Kat Cabaret, Giselle, Les Misérables

I was checked hard when I watched Les Misérables and was reminded of the power of money to blind those who are wealthy to the pains of the rest of the world. And even without watching Les Mis, at the end of the day, my reality check comes in the form of a hefty credit bill and no presents for most of the people I care about, and no financial plan saved for some of the more important projects I have coming up soon. So with this, my Mrs. Dalloway lifestyle will have to come to an end.

[looosey]

Literary London: the Modern Life of a Socialite pt. 1

A fictional piece.

socialite -- n. someone, usually of high social class, who is famous for going to a lot of parties and social events (Cambridge Dictionary)

If I were to throw a party tonight and invite all the people I know... Actually, scratch that! In the spirit of Mrs. Dalloway, if I were to invite all the people I know that are relatively cool, I would make it a dressy party: Come in your heels and with your suit jackets, but leave both at the door, because this is still a Korean household, in this large modern flat, this penthouse in Soho. I'd serve Aperol Spritz and Banana Makgeoli and ice cold Margaritas at the bar. Keep the alcohol flowing! There would be a friend of mine DJing, transitioning from hip hop to pop to techno and back to hip hop again. There would be edible conversation starters available at different corners of the room, relics of my past. How delicious are these Australian sausage sizzlers, did they not have hot dog breads and whats with the barbeque sauce instead of ketchup? Yum, I love kimbap, of course she would have this korean staple at a party of hers. There would be a station, featuring a Barista-grade Breville espresso machine, where you could receive an espresso shot and try your hand at latte art. Only, you could only capture your art in memory or the disposable film cameras handed out early in the night. Phones would be turned in at the door with your shoes and coat. And such, you could only realize how disheveled you looked after hours of dancing and mingling once the film were sent off to be developed: there were no mirrors anywhere, not even the bathroom.

And the center of the room was cleared off, except for the circle of dancers that congregated in dim lighting, bolstered by a friend of mine who has agreed to MC a casual freestyle battle, mainly there to push forward the more hesitant female dancers in the male-dominated sport. Yes, in fact, for this party I would have kept a ratio in mind of women and men (80-20), where the 20% are clear allies to women and can be unanimously be spoken for by all his friends including myself. The guests all vary in age, for many are my peers, aged around thirty years old, and others are in their sixties--established as a cool mentor, young at heart. Some of the guests tonight have flown into town just for the purpose--dancers from the West Coast, young artists from Korea, and academics from Oxford--of appreciating the company they know I keep. Their invitation had arrived to them in a book, a slip of paper hidden between the 71st and 72nd page of Mrs. Dalloway several months before tonight. And such was the final barrier to entry--a literal literary one.

And what about the socializing? If you are sick of dancing, fear no more. At the corner of the room, there is a wall for those who are inclined to museum style exhibitions. One item each guest has brung that makes them happy, their happy thing, next to a short identifiable description of what they are wearing today. I for one might be wearing a silk dress by Versace today. Surrounded by the people I enjoy most, I would be happy if I died today, at this party that I am holding.

[looosey]

Literary London: the Artist and the Muse

For Christmas this year, my boyfriend got me a mini, portable water color set, and sketchbook. And thus, I have this goal of going outside and doing art. Although I have not yet ventured into the many parks around me to do a watercolor still, it seems a bit too cold for that still, I made it a more general goal to do more art here. This is also in part inspired by something Prof. Henderson said in our introductory meeting at MIT: to enjoy our month being immersed by the HASSes (i.e. humanities, arts, and social sciences).

With all of our after class outings to the Victoria & Albert Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, the Guildhall museum, the British Museum, and even churches like Westminster Abbey and all its sculptures, I am drinking my fill in all things art, artists, muses, and patronage. Here are some of my favorite things I've seen.

Left: Westminster Abbey's sublime hallway (1269), lined on every surface with magnificent marble sculptures and inscriptions

Middle: Exquisite Pain (2006) by Damien Hurst, a terrifying anatomically correct looking sculpture of a man who was damned by Apollo to skin himself, located in the Church of St Bartholomew (1123)

Right: The Coronation Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I (1600), in the National Portrait Gallery

Some things I drew during these visits or during class.

Left: Petrarch

Right: Sketched in class in 3 minutes, because he labeled himself as the Poet Laureate, which is the energy I'm trying to bring to 2025.

Left: Cast of Matteo Civitalli's Angel (1496) in the V&A

Right: Sketched in person in about 20 minutes Procreate

Left: Venus, Marble from Rome, AD 1-200, in the British Museum

Right: Sketched in pencil in about 30 minutes from the photo image.

The sketch of Venus is an improvement from the previous two, because I realized shadows make art so much more interesting. Additionally, I wanted to draw Aphrodite/Venus, because "ideal beauty" is so interesting to me, as a Korean.

However, Venus is also the goddess of sex, and in the Hellenistic period exhibit in the British museum, I noted that the display talked about how erotic art was central to the time period. Adowyn was with me, so I wondered out loud if it was because everyone was walking around half naked. Post Garden of Eve. Recently, I walked into the Foyles bookstore, and was randomly flipping through books in the fiction section looking for contemporary books based in London, and I swear every book I picked up I landed on an erotic scene! Which led me to think that perhaps, the UK more so than the US, had normalized and found artistic inspiration in sex within realistic fiction literature!

As I wrote in my discussion post, I am curious about the driving force of artists, which led me to do my case study on Tyler the Creator. I'll finish this blog post with a screenshot of one of our very first readings this month: In an Artist's Studio by Christina Rossetti, which depicts a male artist who creates multiple art works, but it is just one ideal female muse in many forms that fuels his art. The eroticism of ancient roman sculptures and modern English literature reminded me of this poem, and makes me wonder if art might be so much easier if I stay close to primal human instincts.

Above: In an Artist's Studio (1856) screenshotted from my GoodNotes file

[looosey]

Literary London: Camden

As I emerged from the Underground, or tube, as the subways are called here in the UK, at Camden Town station, I noticed the urbanity and grunginess of the streets around me. Grey concrete, grey skies, the grey smell of dank mildew and the yellow acrid whiffs of urine. Amelie and I were in the middle of a busy-ish intersection, where all the buildings were squat, three story max, and inhabited by stores, restaurants, and tourist shops of varying decay. Noticeably there were multiple Blank Street coffees, which were all clean and new near the station, just like the one near the Harvard Square station in Boston. A sign of familiarity and civilization, which was comforting because I was off to a rough start here in London: my bags had been delayed with British Airlines due to a mistake I made in my connecting flight!

We checked into our apartment for the month, which was extremely luxurious and minimalistic, and a stark contrast from the colorful, expressive graffiti all over the lock and waterway. It has a huge beautiful living room, with a balcony, and a nicely stocked gym in the basement.

After getting groceries at the nearby grocery store Sainsbury, which was surprisingly cheap (40 pounds for a weeks worth of salads), I sat down with my laptop, determined to get a grasp of the geography around me.

As you can see, the Northern Line is key to my geographical landscape, and gets us all the way into the heart of London, where I get off at Tottenham Court Road or Leicester ("lester") Square.

Since I've got here, I've noted that we are a breath away from Camden Markets, which is mostly food and fashion stores, the most interesting of which to me was a burlesque costume store (so niche!). The streets around us thus become super crowded on the weekends. The food vendors in Hawley Wharf and Camden Market itself are eager to lure customers, and they do so by handing out toothpicks of fried chicken, chocolate covered strawberries and polish sausages. Apparently, and I found this out today, all the food becomes half off, thirty minutes before closing! Also, a Buns from Home has just opened right next to our place, which sells amazing cinnamon buns.

When I looked into the history of the place, I found that Camden Town was established in 1791 as a residential area [1], and only became somewhat populous in 1820 after the opening of Regent's Canal. In our class's readings of "Charles Dickens's London," we can see that this makes Charles Dickens's family one of the earliest residents of Camden Town! Inspired by his childhood street in Camden, the author wrote in his fictional book Dombey and Son about "a little row of houses, with little squalid patches of ground before them, fenced off with old doors, barrel staves, scraps of tarpaulin, and dead bushes" (1848).

Although I am just a visitor to this place, I see Camden now in the 21st century as: many rows of short brick buildings, residents living on top of and around the central hub of stores with printed signs, pubs, chicken shops, kebab stores, and shops selling shirts like "I am a bitch, and I'm back" and "my girlfriend went to london, and all she got for me was this stupid shirt" (2025).

[1] https://www.camden.gov.uk/camdens-history

[looosey]

My head is about to burst

This morning I was listening to a podcast about being the middle child [The Psychology of your 20s | Podcast on Spotify], and it said something about becoming a young adult and learning to parent yourself, and to tell yourself the things you wish you heard growing up. One example of that was to praise yourself for a job well done, when you did something well.

Tuesday, I was talking to a mentor figure in my life about my qualms with working just a software job forever. Why? Code does not nourish my soul. And I asked rhetorically, does this mean I'm just going to code forever? With real desperation. And he immediately said, no I don't think so, you'll find a way. So quickly, and I felt so relieved from that. I should go back and really think about what parts of my soul are malnourished from a career built upon coding. What part of the day to day, and what part of my long term?

Reminded me of an office hour I had with another potential mentor figure, on Monday. Both of these are professors at mit by the way. And she was encouraging me to explore media studies while I was here at MIT. However, when I expressed my concerns about stability and finances, she mentioned something about a horizontal shift. Vertically scale in tech/building/shipping skills, and horizontally shift into creative decisions.

On Wednesday, I met with my first professor again, and brought him to my workplace and showed him my joint. When I asked him later, what do you think? He brought up many points that had been looming in my head from the media studies perspective that I hadn't applied to my technical job. Think from all sides, he mentioned. I was in a way shocked, because in my life at this point, it's really just as easy to find someone without a moral compass in their personal lives as one with one, maybe because we are so young and drinking from the firehose, and he was here pushing me to view my workplace with one in a very nuanced and not supremely obvious way.

In general, I think this is a direction that keeps my soul nourished, and my work in touch with humanity. And human centricity. So for this, I am grateful to have had this experience.