[holiday greetings]

Silent Night | The Baby Jesus | Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer | Noël | Little Drummer Boy | Jingle Bells | White Christmas | Santa Claus Is Coming to Town | Love Is | The Three Wise Men by 슬기둥 (Sulgidoong) (캐롤집 [Carol House]) (Via Music from Korea)

Happy Yule! The actual solstice will take place at 7:22 pm this evening.

Happy Chanukah! Tonight we will light seven candles, and tomorrow night will be the full eight (in both cases not counting the shamash, which is used to light and stand guard over the other candles).

And a few days early, a Merry Christmas! We’ll be spending ours with Jenny’s niece Emily, some aunts we don’t know, and a pot roast. We do not expect the pot roast to survive.

Today’s musical selection is an unusual twist on the old (and not-so-old) Christmas carols. Seulgidoong is, according to the only information I could find, “a leading modern chamber ensemble devoted to popularization of traditional music by modernizing it. Its 9 members have given distinguished performances of their unique music. They combine traditional music and new world of music in a unique way to create an original repertoire.” Sure. I’m not convinced it’s genius or anything, but hey, how many times have you heard “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” played on gayageum and geomungo?

[live]

I Would Never Wanna Be Young Again | Not a Crime | 60 Revolutions (YouTube Videos) by Gogol Bordello (Gypsy Punk World Strike)

When I was younger, rock concerts were major events in my life. I would find out about a show through a listing in BAM or the Guardian, buy my tickets early and let the anticipation build over weeks or even months. Against the backdrop of tedious mediocrity that was high school, an upcoming concert was a glowing beacon, a reminder that there was a grander, funkier, freakier world out there and that I could access it if I wanted to. Going to these concerts, I knew I was a part of something larger than myself. And back in high school afterwards, I would be sustained by the secret knowledge I’d gained at the Stone or the Omni or the Phoenix Theatre, seeing Primus or Soundgarden or Fungo Mungo: I am not like the rest of you. This is not my whole world.

Once I had a car, concerts became less of a big deal to get to, and consequently less of a big deal. What had once been a breakthrough to an ecstatic new world was now a mostly enjoyable but fairly regular amusement. Once I moved to New York in ’93, concerts became even less meaningful. Try as I might, I failed to find any scene in New York that could stand up to the multi-ethnic, genre-muddling loopiness of the Bay Area. Where bands back home wore wild costumes and leaped around like lunatics, the East Coast scene seemed to require that bands dress badly and stand around looking bored.

Concerts still involved painful noise, crowds, cigarette smoke, long lines, overpriced tickets, late nights, sweat, bad drinks and horrendous opening acts, but the payoff was less. I no longer needed rock concerts to help me locate myself in the world or feel cool.

I’ve been to plenty of concerts in the years since then by artists I really like, but it’s rare that I’ve felt that old sense of anticipation. Today, though, it’s back. Tonight, I’m going to see Gogol Bordello at Irving Plaza, and I feel the giddy thrill of adventure in store. Check out the live clips and you’ll see why.

Bonus: Not a Crime (Video)

[good grades]

I am happy to report that my brother got his grades back from his first semester at Arizona State University, and he has a 3.93 GPA. Well done!

[when do we plan?]

A curious difference between English and Korean is the way we refer to future intentions.

In English, we say the phrase “I plan to” in present tense to indicate something we intend to do in the future: I plan to go home.

Like English, Korean has several different structures to indicate different levels of intentionality. In English, we construct these forms out of various words that color the meaning: I’m thinking of going; I mean to go; I plan to go. In Korean, it’s done with verb endings that don’t have independent meaning.

For the strongest level of intentionality short of I will — translated by my textbook as plan to — Korean uses the form ~기로 하다 (~giro hada). And what strikes me as interesting is that the past tense — ~기로 했어요 (~giro haesseoyo) — is used where we use the present.

Here’s an example:

Korean: 오늘 저는 집에 가기로 했어요. (Oneul jeoneun jip-e gagiro haesseoyo.)

Translation: I plan to go home today.

Literal translation: I planned to go home today.

I think the Korean formulation is more accurate in a certain sense. By the time something is set as your intention, you’re done with the planning. Of course, the Korean grammar form doesn’t quite literally mean to plan, so it’s hard to say. Still, the idea is that you set your intention in the past, and now that intention carries on separate from your ongoing creation of it. In English, by contrast, if you say I planned to go home today, the implication is that you now have a different intent; only by maintaining the plan in the present tense — by continuing to plan — do you demonstrate that your will remains firm.

[un oddities]

Gothamist reports on mysterious white powder at the UN, which it turns out was just flour.

They also link to the New York Post’s Page Six jab at “Hated Annan,” whose farewell party will, they say, be underattended. Keep in mind that the Post is ridiculously right-wing and provides no evidence for this supposed hatred beyond the annoyance of the staff union — and how often does the Post take the side of a union over someone who wants to cut jobs and reduce goldbricking — and the fact that lame-duck John Bolton won’t be attending (he also skipped Ban’s swearing-in and reception), but that could have more to do with how much Bolton is hated.

Don’t believe all the bullshit about Kofi Annan. He is not the saint some have tried to portray him as, but neither is he the corrupt and venal monster of the right wing (whose religious arm, let us recall, are huge fans of a series of novels in which the UN Secretary-General turns out to be the Anti-Christ). I have not read it, but I hear that James Traub’s new book takes a more nuanced view, arguing that Annan was a man of good intentions who was thwarted in many of them by the failings of the institution he heads. And remember, it’s the Member States, not the Secretary-General, that set the direction and mandates and provide (or don’t) the funds and resources to achieve them.

[the handshake]

Ban Ki-moon is between jobs. He gave up his post as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of the Republic of Korea some weeks ago, and though he took the oath of office yesterday, Kofi Annan gets to keep his job until the end of the year.

But this is not the sort of hiatus during which one gets to relax, sleep in and maybe hit a few museums. In celebration of the swearing-in, the South Korean Mission to the UN threw a party for Ban, and his job was to stand in one place, next to his wife in her fancy hanbok and to Ambassador Choi, shaking hands and smiling pleasantly while the rest of us gorged ourselves on hors d’oeuvres.

There had been fears prior to the event that it would turn into a mad crush, but the crowd was smaller than predicted 7mdash; maybe five or six hundred over the course of the evening — and by relegating the snacks to corner tables rather than center buffets and opening up the second floor, the Mission staff managed to keep things circulating fairly well.

Early on, in fact, we had the second floor pretty much to ourselves, completed with our own bar, so we wolfed down sushi and cheese puffs and chicken on skewers and sipped our Stolis and Johnny Walker Blacks while we had the chance. Young and I hung out by the balcony that overlooked the receiving line, trying and mostly failing to spot celebrities. (Guests included numerous UN and diplomatic bigwigs, but do you know what Jean-Marie Guéhenno looks like? Me neither.)

I made a few forays down onto the crowded first floor, weaving through the dense crowd to see what I could see. The average age was older than at most of our receptions, which I took to mean that this was a higher-level group than usual. I fell into a couple of odd conversations, including one with a woman in a shiny sweater and a big fat diamond ring who went on about how influential her husband the plastics magnate was, how many important people he’d met, how many universities he funds, and how fine a school their daughter was attending to earn her Ph.D.

Back upstairs, I found myself telling my Korea story — how we ended up there, what we did, where we lived — to a Korean gentleman who informed me that he worked for the Foreign Ministry in Seoul. When I got the chance to ask him what exactly he did there, he said that he had just finished a term as vice minister. “Vice minister of what?” I asked, confusing the title with deputy minister, which usually comes with a specific purview.

“Of the Ministry!” he said. He went on to explain that there were two vice ministers and that they took on Minister Ban’s official responsibilities when he was traveling. So here I was, talking to the ex-number-three man in the Foreign Ministry about my little language institute in Anyang. I quickly replayed our conversation in my head and was relieved to note that I hadn’t said anything embarrassing or controversial.

At another point, I found myself cornered by a reporter for Boomberg News who began pressing me for information on who really writes the speeches, and I was careful to say that the role of the speechwriters is to polish and render into better English the content provided by the diplomats, whom I described as knowledgeable and highly educated.

As the party began to wind down and the receiving line dwindled, Mr. Ahn, Chief of Operations for the Mission and the man who wields the fancy digital camera at these sorts of events, waved at me to go shake hands with Mr. Ban. “Are you sure it’s okay?” I asked, and Mr. Ahn made one of his inimitable faces, this one seeming to say, Yes, it’s okay, why not, and you shouldn’t miss this chance, and don’t be a wuss. And so I went and shook hands, feeling awkward and grinning stupidly. “축하합니다 (Congratulations),” I told him. Ambassador Choi told him in Korean that I was part of the mission staff, and Ban turned his grandfatherly smile on me, with those friendly eyes behind the ever-present glasses. Ban may not be the most telegenic man in the world, but in person he gives off considerable personal warmth. (Click here, here and here for the full-sized pictures.)

And then it was over. I moved quickly out of the way, ignoring Mrs. Ban completely, which may or may not have been a faux pas. In a little while Mr. Ban and his retinue left, and there was a giddiness among the Mission staff still standing around. After weeks of increasingly panicked preparation, they had survived. The night had gone off without a hitch, and this was the last big event they had to plan for Ban, who will soon be off our hands.

As the secretaries who had been working the door descended on plates of leftover hors d’oeuvres, someone produced a birthday cake for Mr. Lee, a long-serving staffer whose combover is a deep black that cannot possibly still be natural. We all stood there watching the candles burn down as we waited for Mr. Lee to appear from wherever he was, and he made it just in time to blow out the stumpy remainders. Then we were handed bottles of white wine that had been opened but not used, and we made our way out into the night.

[immaculate reception?]

Secretary-General-Designate Ban Ki-moon had his swearing-in ceremony (RealMedia) today before the United Nations General Assembly — on my way to lunch, I passed the president of the General Assembly, Sheikha Haya Rashed Al Khalifa, still in her frilly swearing-in blouse — and tonight, the South Korean Mission is throwing a bit of a party.

We initially invited a mere 1200 people to attend, and only 800 RSVPed right away. This may not sound like that many people, but keep in mind that we don’t have anything like a ballroom. Most of our receptions that draw more than a hundred people feel crowded. To cope with the throngs expected tonight, they’ll open up the second floor, which has some elegant conference rooms but a smaller total footprint than the first floor because of the soaring spaces below. There is also a party tent out in front, which unfortunately has the effect of blocking off a good chunk of the frontage space where people might otherwise have stood around.

Security is another concern. I have no idea what the plan is, or whether there’s even a plan. There were some NYPD barriers stacked up out front, so it looks like local taxpayers will be helping to keep the evening orderly.

I will definitely be attending tonight — I wouldn’t miss it — so watch this space for news on whether a grotesque fiasco is averted, who shows up for the crush, and whether the crowd is so dense that I can’t get to the hors d’oeuvre table.

[wedding photos]

When Jenny and I got married, we realized that few things are more important to a marriage than the prompt development and distribution of wedding photos. That’s why now, a mere three years, seven months and nine days later, the pics are up on the web.

Of course, these are just the rough versions. For those of you who have been hoping for high-quality prints, you should know that the originals are now in the hands of a professional, who will crop, retouch and color-correct for maximum nicefulness.

In the meantime, please enjoy these uncropped, unretouched, un-color-corrected online photos. We would’ve done it sooner, but Photobucket hadn’t been invented yet.

[a do-gooder’s dilemma]

Decisions, decisions! Every now and then, I surf Idealist.org in search of interesting volunteer opportunities. A couple weeks back, I ran across two organizations that looked like they had opportunities worth pursuing.

The first was the Taproot Foundation, which provides nonprofits with pro bono consultants from the business world. I went to their volunteer orientation session last week and was impressed by their approach. Using methodologies similar to those Jenny applies in her business-consulting work, Taproot runs clearly defined projects to help nonprofits operate more effectively. They work primarily with local organizations that directly affect the community, providing everything from rebranding and marketing to information technology and improved human resource management.

I have no particular passion for ladling soup, handing out fliers or painting walls, but I do love to write. With Taproot, I would be doing copywriting and editing of various kinds. Taproot is also very much looking for web designers, graphic designers, photographers and other talented creatives, and I highly encourage certain regular readers like DKNY and Robert to take a look at their volunteer roles.

But then today I interviewed with the World Association of Non-Governmental Organizations, or WANGO (rhymes with bongo, not mango) to see if I would be a good fit to help them with their marketing and outreach materials — everything from their newsletter and brochures to promotional materials for their major conferences and other activities.

Founded in 2000 by 15 NGOs that wanted to pool their resources and best practices, and initially led by a former Assistant Secretary-General, WANGO now seeks to be a global network for NGOs, providing assistance with best practices on fudraising, sharing resources and operating effectively. One of their more interesting efforts was hashing out a Code of Ethics and Conduct for NGOs to help them navigate the difficult questions that inevitably arise when you operate in highly compromised places like war zones and dictatorships.

So which one should I choose?

[insensitivities]

I ran across an Overheard in the Office today that reminded me of one of the more memorable moments of awfulness during the thirty years I worked at STV. I had taken a half-day off for my Great Aunt Sylvia’s funeral, and I put this time down on my time sheet as “Bereavement.”

About a month later, I got a call from headquarters. Someone in HR felt it necessary to ask me exactly who had died. Knowing that technically bereavement leave was for close relatives only, and that STV was grotesquely inflexible on technicalities, I said it was my aunt, leaving out the “great” part. That seemed like a satisfactory answer, and then the HR woman closed by saying, “Next time, make sure you put down your relationship to the person.”

Next time?

It’s memories like that one that make me so very happy to work where I do now.