Year: 2024

Anton Hur’s “Toward Eternity”: A universe made of poetry

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Credit: Harper Collins

When I was an undergrad in university, in one of my art history or philosophy classes, I can’t remember exactly—we were given an assignment to write about depth: How would we represent it? How would we define it? I was extremely intrigued, but ultimately, I chose the alternate topic to write about because I was too intimidated. The one thing I could picture when I thought about depth was a blank page, a blank space, a white void. I pictured the end of things, the final understanding, when all the universe’s secrets are finally revealed. It sounded like death because perhaps that is the only state where we can see the totality of what it means to be alive.

The ending of Anton Hur’s English novel debut, Toward Eternity, reminded me of this assignment. Elegant and economical at 244 pages, this novel asks enormous questions and, sublimely, achieves something that feels like an answer at the end of all things: the arrival at some final understanding. 

Continue reading ➞ Anton Hur’s “Toward Eternity”: A universe made of poetry

Interview—Phillip Phillips: embracing family life, artistic vulnerability and independence

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If you have been following Phillip Phillips’s career for a while, you know he is intensely private, humble, funny, and the embodiment of determination. But fans of his music know that underneath his jovial and relaxed demeanour lies an artist of a deep and quiet sensitivity who is not afraid to explore the more painful and confounding aspects of life, ambition, love and relationships.

Continue reading ➞ Interview—Phillip Phillips: embracing family life, artistic vulnerability and independence

Bristol Lightning tastes all the flavours of Americana

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Blake Collins, Dave Eggar, and Phil Faconti of Bristol Lightning. Credit: Bristol Lightning Instagram

Bristol Lightning, a brilliant new ensemble of virtuoso musicians from Bristol, Tennessee, is bridging history and culture through bluegrass music that transcends genre expectations and rules. Their first EP, Bristol Lightning, was released on June 28. The four songs, part of a planned full album for later this year, are rich, vibrant, and evocative; a sound so fresh that a couple of them, reworkings of popular classical music pieces, feel like a musical rebirth.

The music mirrors the story of how the band came together. For two of the members, Dave Eggar and Phil Faconti, Bristol Lightning marks a new personal and musical beginning.

Continue reading ➞ Bristol Lightning tastes all the flavours of Americana

RM’s “Right Place, Wrong Person” is the right album at the right time

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RM Right Place, Wrong Person Concept Photo 1 by @wingshya

“I’m goddamn lost,” RM sings in “LOST!” the title track of his new album Right Place, Wrong Person, a fun, upbeat song about his struggle to find his right place in the world. The song comes deep into the tracklist, encapsulating the album’s central theme: the confusion of feeling out of place in our surroundings or situation, unable to conform to societal or imposed expectations, or even disconnected from our dreams and goals. 

The song’s video, a funny, absurd recreation of the inside of RM’s mind, shows him trying to reconcile various selves while finding his way through a strange office maze. Though humorous, the video evokes a sense of unease, bewilderment, and even annoyance. It is the art film response to the lush and cinematic video for his album pre-release song, “Come Back to Me,” where we see RM lost inside a house and finding different versions of himself in alternate times or realities. Both videos are rich illustrations of being the wrong person in the right place or the right person in the wrong place. The fluidity between these notions is at the heart of Right Place, Wrong Person, an album that chronicles RM’s dislocating experience of being an artist in the public eye since his early youth.

Continue reading ➞ RM’s “Right Place, Wrong Person” is the right album at the right time

“F**k the algorithm” – Art, curation and influence in late-stage Internet

Categories Art, BTS, Music2 Comments on “F**k the algorithm” – Art, curation and influence in late-stage Internet
RM at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in a post from May 30, 2022 (Screen capture)

A couple of days ago, RM (Kim Namjoon), the rapper, writer, and leader of BTS, unarchived the entirety of his Instagram history. His posts go back to December 2021, when all BTS members opened their Instagram accounts. In the last several months, RM had, seemingly randomly, “deleted” or archived posts a few or whole chunks at a time.

Continue reading ➞ “F**k the algorithm” – Art, curation and influence in late-stage Internet

“Hope on the Street” – an artist’s vital search for his roots

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Documentary and original soundtrack by j-hope of BTS, available on Prime and TVING.

j-hope’s new documentary Hope on the Street and its accompanying original soundtrack, Hope on the Street Vol. 1, mark a new high for the rapper, dancer, and member of the South Korean band BTS. Directed by Park Jun Soo, the six-part series, released on March 27, is an aesthetic and narrative triumph.

Created by j-hope as a final project before enlisting in the military to fulfill his mandatory service, Hope on the Street follows his quest to reconnect with his dancing roots after a decade of building a musical career as a member of BTS. To do this, j-hope calls on one of his first teachers, Boogaloo Kin (Kim Haknam), a South Korean dance champion, to guide him and help him connect with some of the best street dancers and teachers around the world. 

In their journey, j-hope and Boogaloo Kin explore a style of street dance in five different cities: Popping in Osaka, locking in Seoul, house in Paris, hip hop in New York, and finally, a return to Neuron, the dance crew he studied with in his teens in his native city, Gwangju. Throughout, Boogaloo Kin accompanies j-hope as a friend, dance teacher and life mentor. 

Continue reading ➞ “Hope on the Street” – an artist’s vital search for his roots

Monday Morning in Suburbia (new year edition)

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I have tasted defeat. I am tasting it right now. 

It tastes like cold wax from burnt candles, hardened, sharp bits on your lips. 

I tried for four years. I tried to be more than I could dream of. I tried to have a single-line epitaph (“She wrote.”). But I failed. And the fire is all but extinguished. This is no way to start a year. But I am defeated. And I am tired. I am so tired. 

Please, do not bring God, or love, or children to this discussion. Do not bring any of that. Don’t tell me I’m ungrateful. Defeat is a solitary, wrenching conversation between abstract desires that only live in ephemeral form and have now disappeared. It has nothing to do with God, or love or children. 

To lose faith, to lose god, is one thing. To lose the fragile flame that flickers inside, to have it finally extinguished, is akin to a death. And there is no epitaph.