Drama Stage 2020: Big Data Romance

It was a really cute and sweet episode about finding love, overcoming obstacles on the path to it and if there is a lesson to learn from it is that love appears when we least expect it.

And that dating apps are rubbish.

[First Impression] Train

Now, many plot devices here can be wonky as for now, even though we are in the 1/3rd of the series so far (12 episodes in total), but one thing this series has superior to every other now - the cinematography. The shots, especially at the abandoned train tracks and the station, the transitions and the colors are both eerily beautiful and unsettling.

Africa's Hunters Series 1: The Hungry Leopard 1/6 (2015)

This episode is about a sole female leopard named Kamuti living in Luangwa National Park in Zambia. She's 13 years old, so she's almost a grandma, and the story chronicles her trying to get something to eat. Not an easy task because she has neighbors from hell - a lion pride.

Ju Jihun: Being an Actor Starts at 40

OK, so while wandering through twitter, I saw an article, it wasn't that long and since it's been a while I translated something, I made a quick one.

Enjoy. 

[Review] She Knows Everything

This mini drama is based on the script that won 2019 MBC Script Contest, which proves that the fate of crime writers and crime dramas in Korea is rather safe. This 4-episode long story is full of twists and turns, well defined and full-bloodied characters and also a scathing social commentary.

Saturday Poetry Corner 42: Let Us Hurry

Maybe it's because... a many different reasons, but for today - a poem by a Polish priest - Jan Twardowski. If you think it's religious, think again.

I couldn't find the official translation into English so I am posting a fan-made. Also, I added French translation as well.

[First Impression] The Good Detective

It's less a crime story and more a story about how monolithic, and internally stifling police organization can be. It shows the tension and lack of camaraderie among two crime divisions with every result it entangles. It's a musing over what does it mean to be a competent journalist in times of post-truth and manipulation? It also paints a bleak picture of what happens to a cog in a machine when it's deemed expendable.

Drama Stage 2020: My Uncle Is Audrey Hepburn

This was probably the most optimistic and uplifting episode so far. And it dealt with heavy (like gambling addiction) and "controversial" topics.

I purposefully used the quotations mark here, because - as this episode shows - the transgender people's issue is not even an issue if everyone else treats people as people. Simple as that.

Saturday Poetry Corner 41: El Desdichado

 

Today, a bit difficult sonnet written by Gérard de Nerval and published in 1853. 

The poem and the English translation is taken from this website that offers an analysis, because it is not an easy poem, trust me:

As its title indicates, El Desdichado is a poem about loss of love due to fate: when Nerval first wrote it, it was called Le Destin. The final title refers to Walter Scott's Ivanhoe, where a mysterious knight whose fief was stolen appears at a tournament with an uprooted tree as his coat of arms, and El Desdichado as his motto. The Spanish word actually means "unhappy" and Scott may have wanted to use desherado, which means disinherited. But the difference doesn't matter, because both notions apply to Nerval's feelings. Like all poems, this one works by playing with juxtaposed opposite notions. The first quatrain focuses on how miserable he is while the second one retells his memories of happiness. The source of his past happiness is a woman, and he reminisces about his love for her in the final two tercets. All of this is done in dense, obscure verses which combine his experience with cultural references (literature, poetry, mythology, alchemy, astrology...), giving a really intense result.

Click on that link and you will get the analysis line by line.

Saturday Poetry Corner 40: Alone and Drinking Under the Moon

Today a poem about loneliness, drinking and the Moon. By Li Bai (701-762, Tang Dynasty). I remember this poem from my studies times during Chinese literature classes and frankly, I empathize with the narrator now even more than back then.

BBC Natural World: Wild Cuba A Caribbean Journey Part 2 (2020)

In this episode I learned about cenote (a natural pit, or sinkhole, resulting from the collapse of limestone bedrock that exposes groundwater underneath - Wikipedia), a manjuari fish that lives in them and mogote - isolated hills.

And Cuban crocodile - the most aggressive and agile of them all.

Drama Stage 2020: Woman With the Bleeding Ear

This whole story is a parable. It is a harsh critique of the Korean society, and in extenso, any society to be honest.