The World Turned Upside Down?

Cass?

Upside down?

This settles it . . .

Happy 14th: Yesterday, When I was Young(er)

The fourteenth was my birthday, so Sun-Ae and I took the afternoon off to head for the Itaewon area and celebrate, with my wife taking the photos since I'm no handyman . . .

Here I am eating BBQ and drinking a Slow IPA:

Both the meat and the drink were first class! After that meal, we headed uphill to a coffee shop near the Kenyan Embassy, if I'm not mistaken, and the view was marvelous:

Here, you see me ignoring the view, impatiently waiting for the buzzer to buzz and inform us that our coffees were ready. The coffee, when it came, was also good, well worth the wait. I drank an espresso, and Sun-Ae had an Americano.

Afterwards, we reluctantly made our way home because I had so much work to do for the next day's classes . . .

Spanish passage on my blog . . .

La botella sin fondo de la cerveza

Simple Spanish Spiel

I found this Internet scrap of information in Spanish about me and my work on Thursday:

El Dr. Jeffery Horace Hodges. BA 79, ha publicado su primera novela, La botella sin fondo de la cerveza. un cuento moral postmoderno fáustico naif de un joven que cambia su alma al diablo por una botella de cerveza sin fin, pero tiene un cambio de corazón. En alrededor de 150 páginas, el libro incluye muchas ilustraciones del artista conocido Terrance Lindall. Hodges tiene dos títulos de posgrado en Historia por la Universidad de Berkeley y vive en Seúl, Corea del Sur con su esposa, Hwang Sun-ae, y sus dos hijos . . . . Él es un profesor de la Universidad Femenina Ewha, una escuela cristiana fundada por misioneros en el siglo 19, donde enseña composición y la . . .

The passage just breaks off like that. I also see that my first and middle names got reversed. This sort of thing happens all the time with my especially difficult name, but I don't want to start whinging about that. I did wonder how this bit of information got onto the Internet, and I think I've figured that out. It probably comes from Baylor Magazine in the Spanish edition. It thus originates in the English version that I myself penned.

But I'm pretty sure I got my own name right.

John Wells: The Beer Man of Arkansas

Mr. 'Elton John' Wells

Facebook

For several years (yes, years!), I had been unable to contact the Arkansas "Beer Man," Mr. John Wells. I received his e-circulars weekly and therefore knew all about the craft beer scene back in Arkansas. But if I tried to write him, a message came right back 'explaining' that my email was considered spam. Not much I could do about that glitch in the system, except keep trying to send an email once in a while. Last week, that finally worked, and from my email, John presented me in a "feature article":

I . . . got an email recently from our long-lost international correspondent, Dr. Jeff of Korea, this past week. First time in a while that I've heard from him . . . great to know he's still out there and kickin'. Jeff was one of the early subscribers, and lives vicariously through our great beer tales from the West. See more in the . . . feature article [below].
. . . .

Dr. Jeff in the Land of the East

What follows is an email from our good friend Dr. Jeff, a longtime subscriber and contributing author to the newsletter. Hadn't heard from him in a while, turns out there was a glitch that, thank goodness, isn't there any more. How great to know we'll be hearing from the doctor again. Here's the latest on the craft beer scene in South Korea.

Yes, I'm still in Korea. I've tried to contact you previously to report on the changing beer situation here in Seoul, but my emails were rejected as spam. I'm glad finally to have gotten through.

The good news is that good beer has finally come to Korea. Many imports and a growing local craft beer scene.

The bad news is that I have to watch my alcohol consumption. Why? Same reason. Many imports and a growing local craft beer scene.

The doctor advises me to drink moderately, and I can, but I also discovered on my own that a moderate beer or two daily isn't a good idea in my case (I must be aging!), so I've cut back on drinking and let the doctor's advice do what it's supposed to do, namely, prevent me from having a good time.

I do get together with other folk who like good beer - a group of us, including the Canadian ambassador, get together once a month or so to drink beer and talk politics. We have noticed that the Korean peninsula produces more tension than can be consumed locally. The man up north seems to like things that way . . .

I read your beer circular every week, so you needn't tell me how good the Arkansas craft beer scene is.

By the way, I don't know if you ever saw the finished literary product, but if not, here's the link to my Bottomless Bottle of Beer tall tale:

Amazon Books

I've included you in my acknowledgements - due to the "no nick" [Nonic, a beer glass style] pint glasses and the Belgian tulip [likewise] - so let all your beer friends know that you've been acknowledged in a book that will save Western Civilization.

Great to hear from you Dr. Jeff . . . keep them cards and letters coming.

I will do so, and thanks, John, for featuring me so prominently!

Out on the Town

My old friend Seung-Tae and I had our regularly highly irregular scholarly evening out on the town:

Can any readers guess the locale? Should be a cinch. Here's another hint:

Anyone recognize it now? If only that oddly capped foreign fool would stop blocking the view . . .

Craft Beers at Namsan Chemistry Pop-Up

Google Images

I brought several of my friends and acquaintances together Friday evening at Namsan Chemistry for a few hours of drinking - thirty-two craft beers to choose from (none bottomless, but a lot of beer nonetheless) - and I learned what a "pop-up" is, as our conversation broached the topic when I remarked that the place seemed still to be unfinished. It looks like this:

I've borrowed this image from A Fat Girl's Food Guide, and if you click on this image, then again, you'll get an image large enough for you to see what I meant by its unfinished look. Anyway, that's when I got explained to me what a "pop-up" business is. I got the jist of it, but later checked with Dan Thompson's Pop-Up Business For Dummies, which says that "to truly qualify as a pop up, a project should":

Use an empty or under-used space.
Be time-limited, with clear start and end dates.
Not aim for permanence.
Be designed for demountability and ease of removal.
Have the potential to transfer to a different site.
Be in some way exclusive, distinct or special.

This describes exactly what Namsan Chemistry is like, and also accounts for its appeal - some of us had to sit on stacked-up crates for chairs! Drinking there is a gritty experience - not in the sense of dirty, but in the sense of down to earth.

The place was also conducive to conversation. We talked about a number of issues, but especially about North Korea's recent threats and actions, and at least three of the fellows present were qualified to speak as experts - one a recently appointed ambassador to Korea, another a long-time resident of Seoul, and a third from a major think-tank here in Seoul. The three had never met, so they had a lot to talk about. I listened and learned . . . and drank.

Anyway, if this brief report has piqued your interest, here are Fat Girl's excellent directions:

Namsan Chemistry is located at 225-5 Itaewon-dong, Yongsan-gu, Seoul. To get there take a train to Noksapyeong Station (line 6) and come out of exit 2. Walk straight until you reach the underpass, go through and exit using the left hand stairs. Follow the road around and walk straight through Gyeongridan until you start walking up the hill. Namsan Chemistry is about half way up on the left hand side opposite Meatballism. For more information you can call them on 02-797-2279.

Never before have I received such clear directions from a woman! Her way is clear! Nobody has any excuse for not going! But hurry, the chemical experience lasts only till October 31st!

Eureka Springs: A Little Bit of San Francisco in Arkansas

San Francisco, circa 1980, when the party was over, but the guests hadn't yet left on that stairway to heaven:

And you sometimes get that feeling that you've been there before, which makes you wonder what's going on:

But don't focus on the past. Go drown all your morrows in beer:

After all, tomorrow is another day . . .

Sul Gaeguri (술개구리) - Makgeolli Bar in Seoul

Booze Frog Terrace
Photo Borrowed from MAKGEOLLI MAMAS and PAPAS

My friend Yang Seung-Tae and I went to the Hongdae area on Friday evening looking for the 'Sul' Frog Makgeolli Bar and trying to hit on a proper translation of "Sul" in the context of the bar's full name, "Sul Gaeguri" (술개구리).

I suggested "Drinking Frog," "Drunken Frog," even "Alcoholic Frog," but I now think that the Makgeolli Mamas and Papas nailed it: "Booze Frog"!

I hadn't especially looked forward to a makgeolli bar, even telling Seung-Tae that drinking rice beer is pushing the envelope as far as I'm concerned.

But this bar was great! We drank three different types of makgeolli to go with our conversation, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

I woke up late Saturday morning, however, and had a lot of editing and apartment-cleaning to do, thus explaining why this report is so short.

For more on Booze Frog, go to Makgeolli Mamas and Papas, from whom I borrowed the picture above, for that's the terrace table where Seung-Tae and I sat.

Biggie Train - Craft Beer in Daegu

Sorry to have missed blogging on Sunday - we were without internet connection in Jeonju.

Here are the photos from Saturday night, taken at a craft beer place in Daegu called "Biggie Train." I drank an India Pale Ale that the bartender said was supplied by Craftworks Taphouse, and the brew did taste like the IPA I've had many times there, but I'll need to check with Dan Vroon to make sure since there might have been something lost in translation, for the bartender spoke no English. Anyway, here I am drinking that IPA:

Sun-Ae drank a different beer, as can be seen in the next photo:

Sun-Ae's brother and his wife also enjoyed a brew:

I wish I had more time to write, but the evening is passing quickly by this Monday back in Seoul . . .

A Suntory Story - With a Ray of Light!

Suntory

One of the two former Yonsei students I went drinking with some weeks back, Raymond Rohne, is on vacation in Japan, where he photographed the putative 'beer glass of his dreams':

I am currently in Japan and have had a rocky internet connection . . . [for] the past few days . . . . I am going to send a picture of a Suntory beer glass I used yesterday. It reminded me of something Mr. Em would have probably said.

Readers can likely see the words clearly in the image above, but just in case not, here they are:

A GLASSFUL OF DROPS

EACH DROP IS TOMORROW'S DREAM

SIP YOUR DREAM BY DROPS

Ray is probably right that the sinister Mr. Em might have spoken such words, which are just ambiguous enough to get a drinker into trouble, for what is a drop but a fall, but Ray - forewarned by my novella, The Bottomless Bottle of Beer - was too alert to fall for the trick, so he guzzled the brew rather than sip it!

Good man, Ray!

Biking on a Busy Day . . .

We went biking yesterday together, Sun-Ae and I, something we've not had time to do for a couple of years now, so busy we've been with our editing and translation work, and we saw both old and new scenes on our bike trip up the Jungnang Stream to a pathside place where we used to stop for lunch and beer, back when we had more time, and the woman there, the proprietress of the outdoor food-and-drink place, was glad to see us, and maybe for the final time since we have so little time to spare for such trips, and little time for stopping and taking a few photos, such as this one of a fisher bird of some sort:

He looks like a lone sentry in a landscape of Brutalist architecture, awaiting friend or foe, but encountering us, a couple of puzzling creatures who capture him in this, his De Chirico moment.

And then, there's this:

Reeds that grow between biker and stream . . . albeit with highrise apartments looming in the obscure distance . . .

'Twas a chilly day, but worth the trip.

A Mug Like Me . . .

Starbucks Mug

with

Korean Script Introduction

Google Images

Some weeks back, I must have helped a former student of mine with an application (though I don't recall), and because her application was successful, she bought the nice mug you see above and 'gifted' me with it. Well, not exactly that one - the one she bought sat unphotographed on my desk while I was scanning Google Images for its facsimile.

The cup displays the prefatory remarks of King Sejong explaining his reasons for 'inventing' the Korean alphabet, which he named "Hunminjeongeum," but which later Koreans wisely renamed "Hangeul" so that dumb foreigners like me could pronounce it.

I'm really grateful to my ex-student because this mug looks just about right for holding a beer, and in that way, it's a mug like me . . .

Gypsy Scholar with Two Friends . . .

Though you might suspect that two beers were my "friends," based on the two photos below, I was actually having lunch with two EPO colleagues who are also teaching EWIS, but they sent only two pictures of me with one beer:

Scene 1:

I was obviously listening intently, though perhaps not to my Erdinger wheat beer, but she forgave me and soon quenched my thirst for true companionship, given that a glass of wheat beer is well-nigh bread, anyway!

Scene 2:

I would report on the conversation, but I was mostly tongue-tied -- exhausted after three hours' teaching -- and one of the two colleagues was even more tired, so we didn't linger . . .

Ozark Beer Company

Brooding Over a Brewery
Ozark Beer Company

In the beer-related "Official Size and Weight Newsletter" sent weekly by one of my Arkansas friends, John Wells, I learned about the Ozark Beer Company. Craft beer has come to the Ozarks, and John says the OCB is a good craft beer place:

[A]t Ozark Beer Co. . . . brewer Andy Coates is making some OUTSTANDING brews. Southern Living Magazine named Ozark the "Favorite Southern Craft Beer in the State of Arkansas" (June 2014 issue) and right now you'll not get an argument out of me. Their APA and Onyx Coffee Stout are just as good as they come, period, and I also had a taster of their Belgian Golden, IPA and Cream Stout and was very impressed with them all. I brought a 12-pack of the APA home with me but fear it's not going to see a very long life. Watch these guys.

The photo above dates to when the brewers were just getting started, I reckon. But before they got started, the head brewer had some training:

Andy had an apprenticeship with Goose Island Beer Co. in Chicago, and was subsequently hired as a full-time brewer. He learned the ins and outs of a large-scale production brewery, and enjoyed cellar work and the finishing process of a beer (carbonating, and filtering the beer, so that it is ready to be packaged), recipe development, barrel aging, and sensory analysis. It was an invaluable experience that gave him the skillset needed to operate a successful brewing operation.

Take some time to read their story. I wish I could visit this brewery and taste-test to see if it lives up to expectations, but maybe Cousin Bill can check it out . . .

Ken Weaver of RateBeer on Bottle Openers

Opener
All About Beer Magazine

Ken Weaver, of RateBeer Weekly, has just published a piece on the underrated and often overlooked but quintessential bottle opener in All About Beer Magazine. Titled "Opening Act: Prying into the History of Bottle Openers" (All About Beer Magazine, Volume 35, Issue 2, June 9, 2014), the article is also about bottle caps:

[O]n Nov. 5, 1889, . . . [William] Painter submitted the first in a series of three patent applications for a "bottle-sealing device." A second was filed in June of 1890, and the third (and most important) was filed just shy of one year later. All three shared a similar core design: a sealing medium in the form of a thin disk or plug, affixed firmly to the top of a bottle via a crimped metallic disk. The sealer was inexpensive, reliable, disposable (a total mind-blower at the time) and firmly attached. All three versions were accepted Feb. 2, 1892. The device was originally called the "crown cork."

One can, in a historically unlikely way, imagine the fallout in the subsequent months: a chorus of bottle caps knocked against stumps, countless visits to the dentist. Not exactly . . . . Painter's second submission . . . offered a visual solution for getting the thing off. A dotted, crowbarlike device appears in the drawings, hooked atop an affixed cap. "Bottle-openers devised by me of the character indicated and adapted to the removal of sealing-caps by engaging with their projecting edges," Painter reflects, "will be made the subject of one or more separate applications for Letters Patent." The modern bottle opener had been born.

Thank God! Else all that newly bottled beer with metal caps would have remained inaccessible even today! Prior to the metal cap, Weaver tells us, "glass beer bottles were generally sealed with either a fastened cork or a Lightning-type closure" of the type still used on champagne bottles today.

Cork? Just like in my story? Except for the fastenings . . .

Incidentally, what first caught my eye in the above photo was the top quarter of the image, which was all I could initially see as I slowly scrolled down, thinking, "What sort of photograph has Mr. Weaver posted now -- even if alcohol is an adult subject!"

Just scroll until only the top quarter or so of the photo is visible, and you'll see what I mean.

Kind Email from Latvia!

Latvia

Wikipedia

Last week, a man named Janis Krumins asked if I would put his rhyme desk on my blog roll, so I did -- and I also blogged on his request. He, in turn, was very understanding of my attempts at wit, and posted the following email in reply:

Thank you for your support and your witty reply in your blog. English is my third language and I have lots of room for improvement:)

I would guess his second language is Russian. His first is presumably Latvian (or Lettish), but he is linguistically bold, for he's going to read my book:

I have ordered your book. It looks interesting - I like Bulgakov and Dostoevsky is currently my favorite writer, so I hope I will enjoy your book as well.

I hope so, too, or we'll both be embarrassed! But a good beer would settle everything:

As you correctly noted I live in Latvia. If you ever come to Riga, please let me know, I would be very happy to meet you in person. Some of Latvian beers are very good;)

I probably won't make it to Riga, which is a pity since it looks quite lovely:

Riga

Wikipedia

That image above would be the old town, but the new part also looks great! As you can see for yourself if you look around on Google Images . . .

Speaking Again of "LITERally 'Pour' Translations"

Czech Budweiser
|

|

Translation

|

|

V
American Budweiser

As a bit of wry humor, I could say that American Budweiser is a 'literally pour' translation of the original Czech Budweiser -- American Bud being a weak, watery, yellow fizzy liquid, hardly deserving comparison with the excellent Czech lager. Indeed, a poor translation.

Yes, I made a similar joke a little over one week ago, but since I'm working out my talk, I need the humor to be utterly inoffensive to Koreans, so I shouldn't denigrate Korean beers . . .

Speaking of LITERally 'pour' translations . . .

Aleston Brown Ale
Google Images

This one tricked me, as I admitted to a fellow beer aficianado:

I tried a new beer this weekend. The can said "Aleston Brown Ale" and showed London's Tower Bridge, so I bought a can to sample at home. The first sip was okay, a bit of hoppiness, but that faded fast, and the rest of the experience was like drinking water. I looked closer, this time with reading glasses, and saw that this beer was merely a "Classic British Style Beer"! I had my daughter check the small print, in Korean, and she said, "O.B. beer." So much for that!

This attempt by Oriental Brewery to 'translate' a British brew into Korea just didn't work, and if this is the best we can expect from O.B., then the true craft beer industry here in Korea can expect to gain ever greater market share!

Eden's Cinnful Apple!

Cinnful Apple
Angry Orchard

I'd been putting together a test all day yesterday, so I had no time for thinking about blogging, but my regular RateBeer Weekly email came to my rescue with an introduction to a hard cider site called "Angry Orchard" with an intriguing drink on offer, an offering I passed along to the Milton List:

This is a fun website to investigate for Edenic allusions.

Angry Orchard seems to specialize in hard ciders, like this one:

"Our Cinnful Apple cider is crisp and refreshing with a spicy twist. The sweet, slightly tart apple flavor is balanced with cinnamon spice, adding hints of cocoa and a slight heat."

Turns out, "sin" has the flavor of "cinnamon"!

This ties in with a Milton List discussion over the type of fruit Milton imagined dangling from the branches of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and I thought that the expression on the 'face' on that tree above appears rather knowing -- even knowing enough to alarm an animated Pocahontas -- so I posted the info and link at the risk of being thought unserious.

Which I am . . .

Burn in Hal!

Burn in Hal

Last Friday evening, I joined friends Seung-Tae and Kent at Burn in Hal for drinks and conversation. The proprietor -- whom you see in the above photo and who reminds me somewhat of Mr. Em in my novella -- was friendly and already knew Kent (for around ten years), so he spoke with us a bit to make the acquaintance of Seung-Tae and me. I discovered that he was born in 1957, my own birth year, so I asked him what day.

"I'm older," he said, with remarkable confidence.

"Really?" I asked. "What day?"

"January 1st," he said.

"Okay," I conceded, "but I look older."

He smiled, and we continued our more general chat. I learned that he comes from Turkey, that he's been here in Seoul a long time, but has only recently opened Burn in Hal, a smoking place for people who like to partake of fine cigars. Interesting to me was that even as the place filled up with other folk, many of them smoking cigars, it didn't fill up with smoke, so I had no difficulty breathing.

I was half considering trying a cigar myself, but I decided to wait on that, maybe next time. Instead, I drank beer and ate some of the tasty dishes available there as Seung-Tae, Kent, and I talked about politics and history here in Korea . . .

As for Burn in Hal? I recommend it for the civilized atmosphere, a place where you can enjoy a beer or other drink and indulge in conversation without having to shout over loud music.

It's likely also good for smoking fine cigars . . .