Category Archives: Uncategorized

February 26, 2013

“Well, I’m back,” he said.

As you probably know if you saw my Sunday post, I was away last week on a trip. I went by myself to a couple of small islands in the southwest of Korea, called Heuksando (흑산도) and Hongdo (홍도). They’re part of a national park, which is not surprising, considering all the natural beauty there. As promised, here are some pictures I took there. It’s very visual, although not fiction; it’s a travelogue, and actually was pretty fantastic. Enjoy~

I left here on Sunday and went down to the port city of Mokpo. The next day I took this ferry. It was very fast and the water was very rough, making it fun for me, until other people starting getting sick and throwing up. The guy behind me kept saying, “I’m dying. I’m dying. I want to live. I should have gotten off at the last island.”

On the first island, I took a bus around the island on a road that wound up and down mountains on hairpin turns and steep grades. Between the cliffs and mountains, were tiny, idyllic coves with fishing villages.Here is one of the roads. This one is famous on the island and has twelves switchbacks in a row. It was quite something going up this in a bus.

The next day, it was crazy windy so I walked along the beach to see the waves crashing up on the rocks.

After a while, I hiked back inland, through the forest and through pastures. I came across a lot of cow dung, but only 4 cows the whole time. This was a bull, a cow and a calf. The calf was very cute, but I didn’t want to get close, since the cow kept bellowing at me, even when I was out of sight.

The forest on the island was almost all broad-leaf evergreens and there were vines and ivy everywhere. It is much different from the rest of Korea.

This is a view of the harbor looking back across the peninsula where I was hiking. I could easily have stayed there for a long time. It was so peaceful.

At sunset, I went back to the harbor where my motel was. It was the off-season for tourism, so I think I was the only one in the hotel. I never ate at a restaurant with any other customers; just the owners eating their supper.

Then I climbed up the hill behind my hotel, where I was rewarded with this view:

The next day, I took a ferry thirty minutes to the island of Hongdo, which has some of the best craggy rock formations I’ve seen. Just like on Heuksando, I was one of the only tourists there.

I climbed up the mountain and had a beautiful overview of the whole southern half of the island.

The only problem with this island was that it was quite inaccessible. A lot of cliffs, like the one below, were off-limits, with no trails or safe ways to get to them. Which is too bad, since I would really liked to climb up on some of them.

The day was absolutely beautiful. As opposed to the previous cloudy and windy days, this day was sunny, warm, and serene.

I found a hotel, then struck out to the south side of the island and fought my way through the forest of vines and thorns down to a small beach. This island was just offshore from there.

A lot of where I walked was quite close to the edges of cliffs that plunged more than a hundred feet straight down to the ocean. I was careful, of course, but I’m sure my wife would have had a heart attack if she’d seen me.

Hongdo is much smaller than Heuksando and everyone lives in one village in the middle of the island. Probably half the buildings are hotels or restaurants, the vast majority of which were closed for the season. Here is a shot of the harbor as I was coming back in late afternoon.

I walked down to a dock on the far side of the island to see the sun set behind the island.

The next day I got up way too early for the ferry, so I went down to the harbor and watched the sunrise.

Then it just better and better as I waited.

I hope you enjoyed the tour. Now that I’m back, I am slowly climbing the long, winding steps up into the Green-walled Tower to see what other fantastic worlds I can spy. More fiction coming up tomorrow.

P.S. Bonus points if you can name the reference in the title. It doesn’t count if you’re related to me, since I KNOW you know. 🙂

23 Comments | tags: cliffs, ferry, Heuksando, hiking, Hongdo, island, Korea, mountains, ocean, outside the tower, photograph, sunrise, sunset, travel, travelogue | posted in Uncategorized

February 19, 2013

An Update on “The Woman Who Wants to Meet Bush”

By David Stewart

Hello everyone.

I’m not here right now. That may seem like a contradiction, since I’m writing this, but what I mean is that I am not at home when you are reading this (probably). Ah, the magic of scheduling ahead. Right now, I am probably on an island in Korea by myself. Which island, you ask? I’m not sure. I plan to go to a couple, and since the ferries sometimes run in accordance to the weather conditions, I sometimes have to change my plans. However, I will take pictures and post a few here. I plan to do a lot of reading and writing and thinking.

Now, to the update. For those of you who missed it, this is an update on the post I wrote a while ago, The Woman Who Wants to Meet Bush. It was about an interesting woman who stopped me in the market near my office and asked me to invite former US President George W. Bush to come to Korea to meet her. I did send an invitation to an email address I found for him. And a couple days later, I got a reply back.

Well, I am not really surprised that he isn’t coming, it was still nice to get a reply. If I ever meet her again, I’ll mention it at least.

13 Comments | tags: email, George Bush, invitation, travel, woman | posted in Uncategorized

February 13, 2013

Why are we the size we are?

By David Stewart

What an odd question. Also, what does it have to do with fiction? For me, at least, it’s important for world building. Right now, I’m creating a huge and detailed world, probably to set stories in later (I posted a map of one tiny section of it before). When making up completely new creatures, it is possible to change things that we think of as fundamental, like having limbs, or a central brain, or only existing in the physical world. Anything we can conceive of, we can create in a fictional world.

For instance, in my world there are intelligent creatures several inches high and other 350 feet high. I don’t have to explain how that’s possible, since it’s just fiction, but that got me thinking: why are we the size we are? Could we be just like we are now, except the size of ants, or the size of mountains? Here are my thoughts on the subject.

Why it would be harder to be bigger

Being a little bigger is not that hard. Elephants are pretty big, although compared to the tallest living thing on earth, a 380-foot redwood, they’re tiny. Trees have it easier though, since they have a rigid cell structure, they go straight up, and they don’t move. But could we ever be that tall? One problem is the weight. We would need to have incredibly strong bones to hold ourselves up if we weighed 100 tons or so. A couple ways around this would be to be mostly gaseous, like balloon people, to live on a smaller planet with less gravity or have bodies built of some insanely strong material, like titanium-alloy lattice or something.

Another problem with being very large is the time it would takes nerve signals to travel to the extremities. From what I have found (correct me if I’m wrong), nerve impulses travel about 100 meters, or 330 feet per second. So, if we were 350 feet tall and stepped on a nail, it would take a whole second for us to realize it. That’s kind of hard thing to live with, always being one step behind the rest of your body. This could be overcome possibly by having some other way of sending nerve impulses or to have a diffused brain, or even several brains that could handle various parts of the body. In any case, we would have to be radically different in design if we were going to be super huge.

Why it would be harder to be smaller

If only we could ride ants and sleep in a Lego block

Well, how about being smaller? Could we be the size of ants and still be just as intelligent as we are now? The problem with being smaller is that we would have smaller brains. Perhaps if our brains worked differently, they could be much smaller, but as things are now, there is a reason why we are so much smarter than insects.

Another issues about getting very small is the loss of resolution. It’s like if you zoom in on a picture; at some point it will start to pixelate, because as the size of the whole picture gets closer to the size of the pixels, it is harder to show detail.

One of my favorite mugs.

In the picture above, the number of pixels is huge, so even after zooming in three times, you can only just begin to see them. For living things, the things we are made of–atoms–are insanely small, so we would have to be pretty small before we started to lose complexity, but the point is, that we could not be just any size and still be intelligent human beings. Look at what a car looks like when it’s made of individual atoms, compared to a real car.

The molecular car image courtesy of Wired.

Yeah, there’s no comparison, in terms of complexity. In the same way, we could not be very tiny and still be us. At what size that loss of complexity would start, I’m not sure. If you have any idea, let me know.

So…that’s what I think about all day. I’m not an expert on this sort of thing; I just like to think about it. If you have any thoughts, please share them in the comments.

12 Comments | tags: car, giant, molecular, nanotechnology, outside the tower, photograph, resolution, size, worldbuilding, writing | posted in Uncategorized

February 6, 2013

Leaving the Green-Walled Tower for a breath of fresh air

By David Stewart

Adios, さようなら，再见， ជំរាបលា, au revoir, 안녕히 계세요, bye bye… um, that’s about all I know.

Anyway, not to be too dramatic, but I’m taking off for a few days. Actually, I’ll be coming and going for the next few weeks, so don’t fret if my posts seem sporadic. I’ll try to read your posts as well, but don’t get mad if I can’t.

Tomorrow, I’m taking off to go visit a city in Korea I’ve never been to before. I’ll post pictures, if anything seems post-worthy. In the meantime, I will keep writing. Here are a few questions that will be answered when I get back.

1. In Aftermath, what will Edward do now that he has met Hestia again?

2. In the Fantastic Travelogue, who is that strange lady and what happened after I got close to her?

3. I heard from my friend Adam Flynn again. Things haven’t been so good since his last post.

Let me leave you with a song that has always reminded me of traveling, ever since it was on the mix tape in my sister’s first car.

9 Comments | tags: Korea, outside the tower, travel, writing | posted in Uncategorized

January 29, 2013

When Space and Time become Meaningless (and other cosmological musing)

By David Stewart

I love to think about space and time. I find them fascinating. However, I’m not a cosmologist, so I don’t come at the subject with equations and theories. I just think and ponder. It’s more fun that way (for me, at least). If you don’t think they’re interesting, I’m sorry. Let me assure you though that more fiction will be up tomorrow.

Courtesy of newscenter.lbl.gov

We rarely think about space since it is such a fundamental part of our reality (in this post I mean “space” to be the area in which we move, not outer space). However, if you think about it, the idea of space is meaningless without matter. After all, when we measure distance, it is only defined as the amount of space between two pieces of matter. In math, a defined length is between two points. A ray, with one defined point, cannot have a defined length, since one end goes on forever, but we can still start measuring it, because we can start at the defined point. But what if you had a line with no defined points at all? The idea of distance would be meaningless. It could be the length of an atom or a galaxy. There would be no way to know.

Think of it another way: Imagine that nothing exists in the universe except a single photon, a particle of light. We know the speed that light travels in a vacuum, so we know that the light has to be traveling at 299 792 458 m/s. However, with no matter to define its progress, the movement of the photon is meaningless. It could speed up or slow down but to an observer outside the universe (if such a thing were possible) it would look as if it were not moving at all, regardless of its speed.

Time is very interesting to me too. An interesting thing is that while we use time to measure the speed of matter and energy, we can never measure the speed of time itself. That is because speed can only be measured relative to something else and we have no alternative to time.

Imagine that you are on a spaceship with no windows. There is no way of knowing how fast you are going (without instruments) or even of knowing if you are moving at all. Even if there were windows, but no planets or stars nearby, it would be impossible to tell. Speed can only be measured relative to something else.

From the point of view of an outside observer of the universe, the speed of time could fluctuate or even stop and we would never know. If this seems hard to understand, think of it like reading a book. For a fast reader, the story progresses quicker, but for a slow reader, it goes slowly. However, for the characters in the story, time goes exactly the same pace. You can even put the book down and pick it up a year later and the characters will never know the difference. The story only stops relative to the reader, something that the characters have no access to.

Another interesting implication of time is that it is only made meaningful by energy, which is manifested by movement through space. Imagine the entire universe with just matter but no energy. It would be frozen, dead, unmoving. Time would exist, but it would make no difference, since without energy, nothing would change and so regardless of how much time passed, everything would look the same. Without energy, a world with time passing and one without time passing would look exactly the same to an outside observer, just like the live video feed of a rock will look exactly like a picture of a rock, since neither one will move.

Courtesy of iacmusic.com

Do you understand what I’m getting at? Totally confused? Got a headache? Think I’m totally off base? Let me know in the comments. I like discussing these kinds of things.

25 Comments | tags: cosmology, musings, science, space, time | posted in Uncategorized

January 15, 2013

Master of Darkness – William Hope Hodgson

By David Stewart

I’m sure every reader and writer has authors who fire their imagination, who make them see the world in a different way–and for writers–those who help shape their writing’s themes and style. For me, there is a small group that really stands out in my mind: writers like J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, William Hope Hodgson, H.P. Lovecraft, and H.R. Haggard, to name a few. Interestingly, they all did most of their writing in the first half of the 20th century, although I’m not sure if that’s significant.

Today, I want to tell you about William Hope Hodgson. He was an English author who lived from 1877 to 1918 [1]. Actually, he died in battle in Ypres, in World War I.

This is the cover of the book I first bought. Notice the Volume 1 (argh)

I would not be surprised if you haven’t heard of Hodgson before. I first came across a book of his in a rummage sale in 2001. It was The Night Land, Volume 1. Volume 1, mind you, and since the book was out of print, I had to wait about 10 years before I could find the whole story online and see how the story ended. But it was worth it.

Hodgson wrote a lot of books, but the one that influenced me the most was the Night Land. It is a weird book, to be sure, but that’s part of why I like it. It takes place millions of years in the future, when the sun has gone out (hence the title). The remnant of humanity lives in a huge pyramid, over seven miles tall. Outside in the dark, there are hordes of terrible monsters, some of which are on a cosmic, Lovecraftian level of evil. The hero has to go out into the dark to rescue his beloved from another area far away (how does he know her? It’s . . . complicated. You’d better read it.)

It’s not a perfect story. For one thing, it is all written in an archaic, Shakespeare-esque language. There is a reason for it, but I can understand how some people might find it hard to get through. Also, the main character, while very brave and gallant, is also incredibly chauvinistic at times towards his beloved. (Since the book is public doman, James Stoddard has a new version of it where he has modernized the language and hopefully taken care of some of the other small problems.) There is plenty to like about it and plenty that inspires me. Such as:

1. The scale is epic. There is not much that inspires me as much as vast, vast spaces, and that is something this book has a lot of. Besides the pyramid that houses 1320 individual cities, the hero travels huge distances alone in the dark, up and down mountains, and past huge and horrible monsters. All the themes are big. It’s like a sci-fi/cosmic horror retelling of a fairy tale, but more.

2. It’s dark. You’ve probably picked up the fact that I like darkness; not, as the Bible says, because my deeds are evil, but because…I don’t really know why. I find it inspiring. I’ve written eight novels and five of them have darkness as an important theme (five also involved learning a foreign language in one way or another).

3. It’s triumphant. It’d easy to imagine how a story about a world where the sun has gone out and the last remnants of humanity are confined and surrounded by soul-eating monsters could be a little bleak. However, this book isn’t. In the story, the humans (i.e. good guys) are a shining light in the literal darkness and they overcome, or at least stand firm against it. It’s not an easy world to live in, but they keep on and keep defying the darkness. And that’s what I want in my writing too.

I realize that a lot of this has been about the book, The Night Land and not about William Hope Hodgson, but I chose that as his representative book, at least in terms of inspiring me. I would recommend this book to you. If you’re interested, you can download the e-book free here.

Post-Script: And now for something completely different.

I’d like to introduce the artwork of my blogging friend, Sorina at Chosen Voice. I found her blog about two months ago and really love her artwork. She said I could print out one of her pictures, if I took a picture of myself with it. Well, that my hand and computer, at least. Here’s her original post of it.

My copy of Colorful Soul, by Sorina M.

10 Comments | tags: authors, cosmic horror, dark, darkness, epic, inspiration, inspiring authors, The Night Land, William Hope Hodgson | posted in Uncategorized

January 9, 2013

Always, Always Bring a Camera

By David Stewart

You never know what you are going to come across in your daily life, and if you are at all photographically inclined, you need to be ready to catch those perfect, once-in-a-lifetime pictures. Or even those once-in-a-week pictures. My rule is that I should always have a camera with me when I leave the house. It is a rule I often break, sometimes to my lasting regret.

For instance, the very first Visual Fiction post I did was about a bridge I used to take to school every Friday. One day, a few months ago, the entire area was shrouded in fog and that bridge looked amazing, emerging out of the ghostly pall of mist, like the passage to another world. You would agree with me, if you could have seen it, but I forgot my camera that day. I kicked myself over and over, but of course, it made no difference.

The worst time, though . . . I almost hesitate to tell you about that time because frankly, it’s unbelievable. However, a fiction blog like this seems like a safe place to share it. Suffice to say, you are the first people to hear this story.

It was a few years ago, when I was on vacation by myself. I am a bit of a lone wolf at times and sometimes I just need to get away from everything. I was hiking in the province of Gangwon-do. It is the biggest, most mountainous and least populated province in Korea, and by far the wildest. There are many hidden valleys and steep passes between them. I found myself just south of a big national park and just started walking, away from the park. Korea isn’t that big of a country so I wasn’t too worried about getting lost.

I followed a small road up into the mountains until it came to a sanjang—a shelter for hikers in the mountains, like a small, rustic hotel. I decided to stay the night there.

a sanjang, although not the one I stayed in

That night after supper, I decided to go outside to look at the stars. I wasn’t planning on going long and I didn’t bring any of my things with me, including my camera. I walked up to the closest ridge and strolled through the forest, looking at the stars peeping through the budding spring foliage at me. I admit I got lost in a kind of reverie and when I decided to go back, I wasn’t sure of the way. It is very easy to get lost in the mountains at night, especially in an area that you don’t know.

I wandered all night, first on one trail, then another. I wasn’t particularly scared; just thirsty and very tired. The eastern sky began to lighten and just as the sun broke between the mountains, I reached the crest of a long valley and saw a large building with a golden dome on top, shining in the sun.

I wish I had a picture to show you. It was one of those moments that hits you unexpectedly and just floors you. All I could do was stand and stare at it in amazement.

That was the beginning of a several week-long adventure that was like nothing else I have ever experienced. I don’t know where it was, but it wasn’t Korea, as weird as that sounds. I am hesitant to use a phrase like “another world”, since it brings up images of magic wardrobes and Neverland. It wasn’t like that at all.

Over the next few weeks (maybe once a week), I’m going to share my account of that time. I’ve been going through my memory, trying to remember every detail and making some notes. I am not much of an artist, but since I did not have my camera, I will try my best to convey what I saw through my words and a few sketches if I can manage them. I will do my best at least.

14 Comments | tags: fantasy, fiction, Korea, mountains, other worlds, travelogue | posted in Uncategorized

December 25, 2012

Merry Christmas, from the Green-Walled Tower

By David Stewart

Merry Christmas everyone! Happy other holidays too, but since today is Christmas, that’s a good place to start.

Random Christmas fact: did you know that using Xmas for Christmas is hundreds of years old? The “X” stands for the Greek letter “chi” which is the first letter in the Greek spelling of “Christ”.

Anyway, I truly hope you have (or had) a great day, even if you don’t celebrate Christmas. At my friends’ house, we were talking about what Christmas means to each of us. Most people said two main things: it is a day to spend with family and it is a celebration of Jesus coming to Earth. However, another theme was that it is a time for reconciliation and restarting things. It is a day of hope. Or it can be, at least.

Thank you again for reading the blog and I hope you have a great season.

-David

12 Comments | tags: Christmas, outside the tower | posted in Uncategorized

December 18, 2012

What’s an Oppa? – My Interpretation of Gangnam Style

By David Stewart

As someone who lives in Korea and speaks Korean, I have found it fascinating to see how wildly popular Gangnam Style has become all over the world, especially since the vast majority of the people listening to it have no idea what it is saying beyond “Gangnam Style …something, something … hey, sexy lady … something, something.”

In Korea, it is very popular too, although here it seems to fit better: after all, here it is just the latest in a line of many very popular Korean songs. It is still novel, but a little more normal than it is in other countries.

although parts are bizarre in any country.

I am sure there are tons of places online where you can find translations of the lyrics and explanations, but here is my version. First though, there are two words that are important to know.

1. Oppa – This word has a lot packed into it. Literally, it means “older brother of a female”. However, it’s also something that girls call older guys of their generation, as well as their boyfriends. Since it’s possible in Korean to refer to oneself in the 3rd person, the singer (Psy) is calling himself this while talking to a girl. “Oppa Gangnam Style” here means “I am/have Gangnam style”

Interestingly enough, in the companion song to this 오빤 딱 내 스타일 (Oppan Ddak Nae Style) “You are Exactly My Style”, Hyun-Ah, the girl is singing, so when she uses the word oppa, it means “you”. Gotta love Korean. Context is everything.

2. Gangnam – You may have heard that Gangnam is a bit like Beverly Hills, which is true. It’s an area in Seoul and the name literally means “south of the river” which is where it is. It has a lot of tall buildings and expensive shops and is also known for its good schools. Because education is so prized here, parents sacrifice a lot to be able to live within the Gangnam school district. One difference between Gangnam and Beverly Hills is that here, everyone wants to live in an apartment, not a house. So in Gangnam, there are towering palatial apartment buildings, but almost no houses at all.

Gangnam Style

Verse 1

낮에는 따사로운 인간적인 여자

(A woman who is warm and human during the day)

커피 한잔의 여유를 아는 품격 있는 여자

(A woman who knows the proper way to drink a cup of coffee)

밤이 오면 심장이 뜨거워지는 여자

(A woman who heats up when night comes)

그런 반전 있는 여자

(That kind of two-sided woman)

나는 사나이

(I’m a man)

낮에는 너만큼 따사로운 그런 사나이

(A man who, during the day, is just as warm as you)

커피 식기도 전에 원샷 때리는 사나이

(A man who drinks coffee in one shot before it even cools)

밤이 오면 심장이 터져버리는 사나이

(A man whose heart breaks open (comes to light) at night)

그런 사나이

(That kind of man)

Chorus:

아름다워 사랑스러워

(Beautiful, lovely)

그래 너 (hey) 그래 바로 너 (hey)

(That’s you (hey), that’s exactly you (hey))

[repeat]

지금부터 갈 데까지 가볼까

(From now on let’s go to the extreme)

오빤 강남 스타일 [x5]

(Oppa Gangnam style)

Eh – Sexy lady

오빤 강남 스타일

(Oppa Gangnam style)

Eh – Sexy lady

에에에에에

(Eh eh eh eh eh)

Verse 2

정숙해 보이지만 놀 때 노는 여자

(A woman who seems modest but plays when it’s time to play)

이때다 싶으면 묶었던 머리 푸는 여자

(A woman who lets down her hair when she wants)

가렸지만 웬만한 노출보다 야한 여자

(A woman who covers up, but is wilder than if she showed a lot of skin)

그런 감각적인 여자

(That kind of sensuous woman)

나는 사나이

(I’m a man)

점잖아 보이지만 놀 때 노는 사나이

(A man who seems like a gentleman but plays when it’s time to play)

때가 되면 완전 미쳐버리는 사나이

(A man who goes totally crazy when the time comes)

근육보다 사상이 울퉁불퉁한 사나이

(A man who, more than muscles, has a rugged way of thinking)

그런 사나이

(That kind of man)

Bridge:

뛰는 놈 그 위에 나는 놈

(Leaping guy, a guy who’s flying overhead)

baby baby

나는 뭘 좀 아는 놈

(I’m a guy who knows a little something)

[repeat]

You know what I’m saying

오빤 강남 스타일

(Oppa Gangnam style)

Eh – Sexy lady

오빤 강남 스타일

(Oppa Gangnam style)

[repeat]

Blowing up old men? Sure, why not?

So, this is basically a song about a guy trying to pick up a girl by showing that he is the new type of the Korean man, the “Gangnam” Korean. The problem is that there is not a lot attractive (or at least sexy) about modern society. Korean men work very long hours and just like anywhere, office workers are not as strong and fit as men who work outdoors (note the line: “A man who, more than muscles, has a rugged way of thinking”). This song is all about dual roles: one way during the day, another way at night. Modern society is pulling us different ways and this song embraces that.

Of course, this is also satire. Psy is poking fun at a lot of aspects of modern society. For instance, the references to coffee. Coffee is a fairly recent fad in Korean and is still somewhat of a luxury item (it’s not uncommon for a regular latte to cost $5-6 at a coffee shop). Also, it is strictly a social drink, not something people usually drink in the mornings at home. Psy is joking that a real man pounds coffee, just like shots of soju with his friends.

It’s also just a fun song.