K-Drama Drama

 The other day I logged into my streaming app and got the following distressing news:

What is this??  Four days to find out if the Sovereign of the Spirit World is going to get back together with the mortal world's most dashing general??? How am I going to make it?

Technically this show is a C-Drama since it is Chinese not Korean, but I lump my J's and C's into K's.  I mean, if a show has the requisite moves, it's a k-drama to me:

-the wrist grab

-the camera pan-out (from multiple angles!) while the leads stand about 5 feet apart, stationary, gazing intensely into each other's eyes.

-a chaste piggy-back ride (usually gratuitous to the plot)

-a focus on food, especially the slurping of noodles

-a drunken confession

-a sudden, impulsive, un-signaled kiss which the other the other person unexpectedly melts into, only to have one of them push the other away in denial

-the 'hold your hand (or grab your arm) suddenly while I'm sleeping' move

-the over-arching stretching of the audience's emotions by thwarting the romantic pairing at the heart of the show because one (or both!) of the leads thinks they are not good enough or will ultimately hurt or put in harm's way the other one (with good reason such as:  they are from a different time period, a different level of society, they are undying and the other is mortal, they are an alien, a goblin, a grim reaper, sworn-to-kill-you-because-you-are-the-enemy (or the child of an enemy), they are in the middle of a body-swap incident and so not who they appear, they are actually a cat or a fox or something - in other words, the usual stuff we all have to deal with)

-over-the-top emotive soundtrack (examples here and here)

-the mandatory flashback sequence of 'all those signs I missed but the audience noticed' as well as always backing up a full scene at the start of a new episode

I remember my mother reading these derivative, unoriginal romance novels when I was a kid and then, many years later, my mother-in-law watching various C-Dramas (she even told me confidently once that I would like them).  I thought "what is wrong with them?" 

Over ten years ago, for reasons I can no longer recall, I secretly watched my first K-drama:

My First

My heart raced, I cried, I didn't understand what was happening, I stayed up all night binging episodes in the corner of the living room after the fam had gone to bed.  Little did I know it was just the start of my K-drama journey.

Now, I'm proud and out.  I've thought about doing a top 10 list for K-dramas but I thought I would first make this post and see how it sits with me.  Younger Ken mortified, Current Ken bemused for sure but what about Older Ken?  I'll have to ask him when he reads this post in a couple of years...

By the way, Younger Ken - don't be so quick to judge your own mother and mother-in-law!

My latest

Electric Field Aura?

The other day, I was doing the old 'disco-plasma-ball can use its electric fields to light a fluorescent bulb up' demo (probably my favorite demo of the year) when WH asked if he could snap a picture.  Later, I saw that he was using it as his screensaver on his phone.

You can't see it, but I am, of course, muttering an evil inflected 'Muh Ah Ah Ahh" (as requested).

The old day job can still be fun!

Monet, Wenders, and Komorebi

Last year, I saw beautiful poem of a movie by one of my favorite directors:

The ending scene defines a very Japanese word:

Of course, the same culture that gave us the Haiku poetry form would have a word capturing something so ephemeral.

Today, in the MFA, I happened to catch an explainer about Monet that referenced this concept (although not the word itself) in the context of his fascination with Japanese art.

Aha, I thought - of course - the master of light in nature would be chasing komorebi :

Time: Ephemeral

Each Instant of Life Passes,

Real or Imagined?

Knight Rider, Education, and Me

 

In the 80's, there was a period of time where Knight Rider was pretty much the coolest thing, like, ever!  With its talking car and iconic soundtrack, it was a huge international success.  I, of course, watched my fair share back in the day.  However, I have never felt the hankering to go back to check it out in the streaming world.  Irene, however, is systematically working her way through all the 80's hits and so I am hearing the soundtrack again. (for the record, the little I have watched does not encourage me to recommend it to the uninitiated).  It is a cultural touchstone for everyone around my age though so I can confidently reference it to a peer casually and be assured they will get the reference. 

For instance, Michael Knight is known to work for "The Foundation", so if I hear those words, my first thought will be of KITT and Hasselhoff.  I had forgotten the full name was actually "The Foundation for Law and Government" (yikes!).

Now, let's go back to 2008 when I was a new hire in Wayland and my mentor (fellow physics teacher PS) was giving me a tour of the campus.  When we got to the faculty lounge, there was a parent representative from the local fundraising organization :

Me being me, when the dude from the organization said "I'm here from the Foundation", I quickly responded with "I love the work you've done with Michael Knight".  PS busted into a surprised chuckle as the parent searched his memory for a teacher named Michael Knight that they've supported with a grant in recent years...

Oh, I'm still proud of that one...

Chess Rap 2026

This may be the end of an era...

Video creds to JM!

A Sweet Thank You

 Through the years, I have gotten a few cookies as thank you's from students - but rarely have they spanned so widely across the curriculum as these from KT:

In case you can't tell, it's a rocket ship (suspiciously similar to Veritasium's rocket ship!), a Wheatstone bridge circuit, and a free body diagram.  I ate the free body diagram one arrow at a time but I had to do it quickly since it started accelerating away once I broke the equilibrium...

Immigrant Moms Get the Job Done

 

 I am the son of an immigrant Mom

My wife is the daughter of an immigrant Mom

I was 21 when I saw this movie that showed me the richness of the melting pot that is the USA.

I didn't even know there were Indians in Mississippi nor that there were Indians from Uganda (!)

This Mamdani fella has been making the news.

I heard he has an immigrant Mom too.

Today, I found out his immigrant Mom is the director of that movie