She Has Such A Beautifully Haunting Voice.

She has such a beautifully haunting voice.

My favorite song of hers is "Llegó con tres heridas" ("He Arrived With Three Wounds") based on Miguel Hernández's exquisite short poem.

Llegó con tres heridas: / He arrived with three wounds: la del amor, / that of love, la de la muerte, / that of death, la de la vida. / that of life.

Con tres heridas viene: / With three wounds he comes: la de la vida, / that of life, la del amor, / that of love, la de la muerte. / that of death.

Con tres heridas yo: / With three wounds, I: la de la vida, / that of life, la de la muerte, / that of death, la del amor. / that of love.

joan baez performing 500 miles and harmonizing with the audience you will always be famous

THE FROG 아무도 없는 숲속에서 (2024)  Episode 2 ─ Who Will Come Knocking on the Door of My Destiny? 

My Journey To You (2023) 1.20

Anticipating the LITBC Adaptations

One of the questions @bengiyo asked us this week is what parts of the book we are most looking forward to seeing in the upcoming film and drama adaptations. I had a good convo with @doyou000me and @stuffnonsenseandotherthings in the comments here, and I wanted to talk a bit about why I am excited for these adaptations.

Most folks who watch a lot of South Korean media know that there is precious little LGBTQ+ representation in Korean dramas and film. In mainstream kdrama, we are lucky if we get a queer side character a couple times a year, and it's even more rare for those characters to get a romantic partner (but not unheard of, see Be Melodramatic my beloved). There has been a big uptick in Korean bl production over the last few years, but most of those projects are underfunded and fly under the radar (with notable exceptions like Semantic Error, The Eighth Sense, and Love for Love's Sake). So it is a very big deal to me to see two mainstream adaptations of Love in the Big City, a story that is undeniably centered on a queer lived experience.

Let's talk about the film first. When I first saw the announcement that we would get a film adaptation starring Kim Go Eun, Steve Noh, and Kang Ha Neul, I was ecstatic. These are huge names in Korean media, drama headliners and movie stars. Now, does the choice to focus only on part 1 and center the story on Jaehee mean this project likely won't feel fully rooted in Young's queer perspective? Absolutely, we should recognize that and manage our expectations accordingly. But there will be a mainstream film about the relationship between a woman and a gay man living together, and that is already a very big deal for South Korea. We have to look at this project from the context of Korean social politics and recognize that it signifies progress. And I am still hopeful that Young will feel like a fully realized character, even if we are unlikely to see the full extent of his depth and complexity represented in this film.

And that is where the drama comes in. Sang Young Park himself is the screenwriter for this adaptation, and based on the production photos @my-rose-tinted-glasses shared here, we are getting all four parts of the story in this version. The cast here is not as famous as the film headliners, but they are recognizable, solid actors who have had main roles in other dramas. I don't know how these two projects came to be made at the same time, so I can only say that having them premiere around the same time is genius, whether by intention or happenstance. Because I can easily imagine that people who are exposed to this story for the first time via the film might then go check out the drama, where they will see a much fuller picture of Young's life and an authentic queer experience. @archiveofmystuff shared that there has been some reporting about the long process to secure funding for this full novel adaptation, and I'm not surprised it was difficult. But with Sang Young Park attached I feel confident that we will get a solid version of this story, even if it can't get quite as explicit about all the gory details as the novel did. I can't wait to see Young, Jaehee, Umma, Hyung, and Gyu-ho on my screen, and I'll be so curious to see how he structures the show to fit the four parts of his novel into eight 50-minute episodes. There are so many exciting possibilities and I am feeling optimistic.

TL; DR: it's a big deal that these adaptations are being made, and it will surely result in more people seeing Young's story. It's a signal of positive progress in the Korean media landscape, and I welcome it.

Just Neil looking to Xiao Hai for reassurance (˃̣̣̥ᯅ˂̣̣̥)

— First Note of Love 弹一场完美恋爱 (2024) | EP. 3

I am DYING ahahahahha omg