Flame, Glass and Ink are Poems, essays, and reading notes by Stefania Joori Suh

Category: book review

  • “Mind Your Language” (TV Series 1977-1979)

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    Have you ever tried to explain a certain colloquial expression, such as “kick the bucket,” “shoot off his mouth,” or “until the fat lady sings” to someone whose mother tongue is anything but English? You probably have been delighted to find out how meanings of words can yield multifarious feats of creative interpretations, which can also, in turn, be prospective nouveau vocabulary of the most effectively deployed Lingua Franca of our time. After all, that’s what Geoffrey Chaucer and William Shakespeare, and George Bernard Shaw did to the English language, which is still kicking and alive in keeping up with the evolution of our own cultural progress. And certainly, the students in the evening English class are a tour de force of such cultural enterprise in this hilarious original British sitcom “Mind Your Language.”

    The story of Jeremy Brown, an ingenuous young academic teaching English to his slightly offbeat motley crew of foreign adult students at evening classes in an adult education college in London forms the basis of the show. Mr. Brown has to deal with his students’ creatively wily answers to his questions, while trying to instill in them the elements of the English language with his Oxford-educated academic credentials. In fact, it’s the class that gets the laugh by pushing their naive enthusiastic young teacher into an imbroglio of jocular situations all for the celebration of joviality in their evening English class after hard days of work. In bewilderment of his students’ wily but innocuous chicanery, Mr. Brown’s affection for his class grows bigger and deeper as the show continues; you see him becoming something of Jack of all trades for his students as well as the principal, Ms. Courtney. You will find Mr. Brown at the police station, in court, in hospital, on the dance floor at the school fete, and of course at the pubs with his beloved students or Sidney, the cockney school caretaker.

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    The Cast of “Mind Your Language”

    The delightful peals of hearty laughter, the bounty of warmth, and even remedial lessons of English embroider on these three scintillating series of the show produced by London Week Television between 1977 and 1979 for ITV in England. Each of the episodes was ingeniously written with simply brilliant feats of words and ideas on the grounds of realistic situations relating to anyone who speaks English as a foreign language or anyone who deals with such person in reality. Also, the collective efforts and performance of the cast with each actor and actress harmoniously contributing the best of the self to the respective character is the ipso facto gem of the perennial popularity of the show to this date. All in all, the setting, the topic, the storyline, and the cast of “Mind Your Language” give you the idea that in order to make a good TV comedy show that strikes the chords with a wide range of people regardless of ethnic, racial, and/or social backgrounds, all you have to do is to look into the everyday life around you and see if there is anything that transcends the subjectivity of the aforementioned backgrounds in order to reach the universal code of humor and humanity without pontificating social/political ideology. For these reasons, “Mind Your Language” is an unmissable feast of comedy of intelligence, wit, humor, and a touch of innocence that deserves of its recognition in the canons of British Classic Comedy.

  • Lonely Planet California by Lonely Planet

    Lonely Planet California (Travel Guide)Lonely Planet California by Lonely Planet

    My rating: 5 of 5 stars

    FORGET La La Land. Horace Greeley, founder and editor of the New-York Tribune, writer, and statesman whose ingenious wit melded with erudition and humanity endeared him to the American public urged the people on the East Coast, especially educated unmarried women in the east – to move to California for its primordial beauty: “Fly, scatter through the country, go to the Great West, anything rather than remain here.” Also, Henry David Thoreau described California as a pristine virgin land where a terrestrial River of Lethe flew the Lethe of the Pacific. The collective literary rhapsody comes to life in this world-famous travel book with its signature vivid colorful pictures and detailed, itemized information on the region in suavely offhand  convivial narrative style that entices you to love California at first sight.

    Abundant with its rustic and restive natural beauty unsurpassed by glamour of tinsel cities and its unique melding of multifarious cultures and rich history, California is a sun-kissed prize of the States. Take a hiking in Mt. Shasta, and this awe-inspiring mountain will stir your imagination and makes you believe it a home of a sky-spirit as the native tribe believe. If you are in mood for being in touch with the caress of the blue waves away from the meele and reality just for one day, you can elope with your beloved or with your own weary self to Big Sur. Nested against mysterious-looking redwood forests, the Big Sur Coast has all the elements for being a lovers’ paradise where you can be in your most unguarded self and be a Phoebe Cates or her lover in movie Paradise. On the next day, a visit to Santa Barbara will be quite a cultural feat by visiting the 18th century villas, shops, and churches built by Spanish conquistadors and priests. Or you and your fido friend can do some super-fun splashes or even venture surfing at Huntington Beach on weekends. And of course, there are Disneyland and Universal Studio if you want to meet your favorite characters from childhood and roll with what the best amusement parks can provide to your wildest dream at the best.

    This book is a comprehensive overview of the places and history of California in addition to rich remedial information on the rates of currency and estimated expenses expected of traveling the region if you come from a different country. Written by several veteran globe trotters and well-traveled Californians in compilation, reading the book will give you a sensation of listening to your friend’s travelogue or experiencing a jolly tour guide by an amiable cicerone all to yourself for free. Moreover, the book will equip your mind with knowledge of the region, so that when you actually go there, you will appreciate the beauty of the region like never before.

  • Equality vs Civility

    Re: July 21, 2018 issue of The Los Angeles Times on “Paramount TV President fired over comments” by Ryan Faughnder

    The article surfaced on the last Saturday’s edition of the paper in tandem with #MeToo movement that had gone viral in the Cyber Sea of Internet. The incident reported in the article illustrates a current phenomena that became all the rage by a willful destruction of a bete noir character whose strong, offbeat views and opinions irked some of the audience in their circles. The gist of the article relates a grave disregard for the principle of civility and a hackneyed understanding/conception of equality – i.e., what constitutes Equality in its pristine essence – by putting the case on the balancing scale of Lady Justice.

    Amy Powell was fired following her inappropriate comments made on the upcoming series of “the First Wives Club,” which is expected to feature a predominantly black cast. During a phone call discussing the project, Powell was allegedly said to make stereotypical comments on blacks, especially black women’s being pugnacious. This incident came to light, thanks to a studio assistant’s eavesdropping of the phone conversation and reporting thereof to the department of Human Resources forthwith. Powell denied the out-of-context allegation and said she would be vindicated.

    In fact, the ousting of Powell was followed by a series of bloodcutting of the business tycoons along the lines of their allegedly racially motivated faux-pas unearthed from within. Take Netflix’s firing of its chief communications officer for using a racial slur on two occasions. Also, John Schnatter, the America’s number one pizza chain Papa John’s International Inc Chairman, was forced to step down from the company that he founded and grew with sweat and blood after the acerbic and acrid public accusation of him as a racist all because of his comments on the black footballers’ inappropriate behaviors during the national anthem. The aforementioned companies expressed their concerns over such incidents because what they had said were not in line with their values as companies and therefore were detrimental to esprit de corps of the companies. They said in harmony that the salubrious and comfortable work environments should take priority over individual contributions and experiences consummate their capabilities and other personal assets.

    Notwithstanding the above statements made by the companies and their measure of justice to enforce a total domain of equality to create salubrious working ambiance, the gravitas of misappropriation of equality and the absence of civility in our society looms large in the imbroglio of incivility and distortion of liberty at its best. With respect to equality of human condition, of course it is among the greatest and most uncertain ventures of modern mankind. However, we have bastardized its pristine nature and the meaning of the sovereign privilege of mankind by applying to just any and all aspects of our contemporary life ad nauseam. The more equal conditions are, the less explanation there is for the differences that actually exist between us. Equality will simply be recognized as a working principle of a political organization in which you are normal if you are like everybody else, and vice versa. It is the perversion of equality from a sacred sovereign value into a mere social concept, politically influenced, conditioned, and shaped by a great social Leviathan vested with all the power to persecute all abnormal you.

    Speaking of the importance of civility, the elimination of the aforesaid individuals contextualizes just how the society in general mistakes incivility for racialism. It’s about a lack of courtesies generated by the informalization of civility in the sense of benevolence and respect for others. It’s the manners that take place of the gaps left by the law. For example, there’s no law against cutting a line or importuning of a panhandler to customers in a coffee shop. And this is where a role of civility comes in. Civility in essence is about strangers being able to live a communal life in society. It’s about being able to disagree without being disagreeable, as Obama once said wisely. And just as this presence of incivility takes a heavy toll on keeping the society in an orderly system, our society should endeavor to educate the citizenry on the subject of public civility instead of prompting the public to eavesdrop their coworkers or colleagues and encouraging them to inform their colleagues on the ground of racialism that may not be objectively true because reality is always another way of looking at the world in multifarious ways.

  • One World Less, One Mind Less: Goodbye to Mr. Jonathan Gold

    RE: July 22nd 2018 Article of “He Gave us the Keys to a hidden city” by Ruth Reichl of The Los Angeles Times

    I never thought about being interested in a food critic in my life. What’s more, I never thought about writing about a food critic or anyone associated with the word “Food.” Being a believer of food as a a means of providing energy to keep my body going to live, I never paid attention to anything written by a food critic whose audience I thought would involve bon vivants only. That was until I read the article written by Ms. Reichl, a former food critic and food editor at the Los Angeles Times about the death of beloved food critic Jonathan Gold that graced the front page of the Sunday edition of the paper.

    It is said that Mr. Gold died of pancreatic cancer on Saturday evening at St. Vincent Medical Center, the illness that had been so rapidly progressed since its diagnosis in early July that none of his close friends knew about it. The death of this Pulitzer Prize winning restaurant critic was beautifully recited in a one-of kind eulogy by Ms. Reichl’s vivid memory of him in her own words evocative of the simple but consequential writing impacts that I had seen from the writings of George Orwell, Stephen Crane, and Chris Bohjalian. Through her photographic writing, Mr. Gold came to life once again, driving with her to their destined food places, be it ever taco trucks, distinctive restaurants, or just any other places where the food that grabbed his attention was waiting for him. Ms. Reichl’s fine writing in combination with the discovery of Mr. Gold as a revolutionary figure in the genre of food criticism was indeed a fresh breath of the air.

    Ms. Reichl’s heartfelt presentation of this likable and democratic food critic drew me into another great writer with brain and heart who tried to democratized gastronomic experiences usually reserved to a certain strata of people and to break down the social and cultural barriers existing among the classes in our society. And certainly it would be a great loss not to read a book by this witty, vivacious food critic with a milk of human kindness who elevated the value of the taco truck and revered it more than the tasting menu of any high star Michelien approved snobbish New York City restaurants that were so overrated by rote.

     

  • Inside American’s Tomb for Illegal Wildlife Trade

    RE: July 16th, 2018 article of “On the Grounded in Commerce City, Colo. : Inside America’s tomb for illegal wildfire trade by David Kelly of the Los Angeles Times

    Imagine the vistas: a cornucopia of a mounted tiger fetus with its tiny ears, a grand giraffe head, a pair of shiny python skin-made thigh high boots, a black bear’s toes coupled with its gallbladders, and many more artifacts made out of animals that will never cease to blindside your vestige of humanity and overawe your tactile senses. If your mind tells you to think that the imagery is but a visceral affectation of a surreal painting of Salvador Dali, you just think yourself awake in the stupendousness of dreamlike morbidity. They are just a few illustrations of taxidermic animals confiscated in the course of international illegal trafficking of endangered animals exhibited in the National Wildlife Property Repository (the “Repository”) located in Commerce City, Colorado.

    My opinion on the report of the Repository as to its existence and nature is threefold: First, I can’t believe that there is such a horrendous and macabre exhibition of the animals killed and stuffed – and in the shoddiest way – open to the public, especially aimed at school students. Second, the grim underworld of a huge illegal trading market where a great demand of the coveted animal products is constantly met with a colossal supply of the dead animals is a stark reality even in this age of technological supernova. Third, it shudders me to think the wantonness of avarice and gluttony for which the sinners would find themselves in the third and fourth circles of Dante’s Inferno. What’s more, the fact that the Repository of such abhorrent kind is located not in the outpost of civilization where the artifacts of the sorts would be regarded as a cultural tradition but in Commerce City in Colorado chills me to the bone.

    It is reported that the purpose of the Repository is to educate the public on the gravitas of poaching and trafficking of endangered animals systematically perpetrated in global criminal syndicates of Chinese origin active in South Africa. However, I am concerned about the effects it intends to produce, however noble it may seem, which will likely work at cross-purposes, even counter-productively, pace its original intention to raise social awareness and ethical context of the issue. It might be all over but the shouting that rather than promoting awareness of destruction of the ecological system and its inevitable adverse impacts on mankind as well as the nature itself, the sight of the mutilated dead animal bodies and/or parts may be regarded as a freak show for those who have bizarre tastes of necrophilia and/or sadism emanating from the perceived sensual pleasures of watching animals torn apart from rib to rib, ear to ear, or head to toe in perpetual torture.

  • Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul by Howard Schultz

    Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its SoulOnward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul by Howard Schultz

    My rating: 5 of 5 stars

    It was eight years after the founder of Starbucks Howard Schultz had resigned from the position of CEO when the company that he had sown with the wind and reaped in whirlwind was at stake amid the catalytic financial crisis in 2008. The perilous state of Starbucks called for its creator’s return to take the helm of a distressed ship on the verge of sinking into the abyss of obscurity with all its hopeful expectations, respectful achievements, not to speak of all of its shipmates from the management down to the store employees. Schultz could not let all of it happen. He accepted the calling in the capacity of CEO to save the ship and continued sailing onward, which forms the basis of this book.

    What might be considered as an autobiography of a business tycoon at first blush of the title of the book will lead the reader to an interesting peek-a-boo of a successful enterprise that is armed to the teeth with its unique philosophy of practicality and idealism rooted in operational rigor and accountability striving for a healthy balance of profit and social conscience to provide customers with prime quality coffee proprietary to the brand. Schultz’s ambition to perfect the art of making fine espresso as the company’s distinguishing attitudinal value of coffee-making from the competitors is akin to that of craftsmanship of a seasoned artisan of a medieval guild. For example, in the afternoon of one Tuesday in February 2008, Schultz closed all of the US stores to improve the making of espresso because pouring espresso was something of an art, and therefore required a barista to attend to the quality of the beverage even though it meant the huge loss of profits for closing the stores just for one day. To Schultz, taking the ordinary to elevate it to an art also relates to a business principle of putting the sincerest endeavors to the foundation and innovation of the company; it is a right way to win as he believes, “Coffee can’t lie,” which is also reminiscent of what Theodore Roosevelt commented on his favorite coffee as being “good to the last drop.”

    In addition, Schultz offers many more interesting tidbits of the company without disclosing its trade secrets in an informative way: That Starbucks is company-owned and not franchised is something new to learn. Unlike William Rosenberg, the founder of Dunkin’ Donuts, who was a fervent believer of a franchise, Schultz adamantly opposes the idea of franchising Starbucks because ceding ownership of stores to individuals will most likely to mar the enterprising spirit of the company and loosen the cohesiveness of esprit de corps, let alone the principles of providing a customer with the best quality beverage in a social yet personal environment between one’s house and job. Besides, the company’s provision of full health care benefits to all employees, ranging from the corporate heads to part-time attendants in stores points to the veracity of Schultz fostering of social conscience in the course of making profits, withal.

    Onward is a testament to the steadfast adherence to cardinal principles of playing a good clean competition in a business world without becoming a tainted soul. That is, achieving success in promoting its entrepreneurial profit growth and humanistic idealism is all over but the shouting. It might make the reader wonder if Schultz has heard the adage of Ralph Waldo Emerson during his lecture to the audience in the height of the Lyceum Movement: “Knowledge, plus moral character, promotes business success.” All in all, Schultz’s touchy-feely narrative surprisingly devoid of self-aggrandizement or ostentatious display of his lifetime achievement, relates a tale of a man whose ambitious but admirable philosophy of entrepreneurship rigorously kept against the insurmountable odds with  the heart of a man responsible for his legion of employees and their families appertains to the reader in one way or another. Upon reading the book, the reader will feel a bit privy to his/her regular Starbucks on a next visit in a nice sort of way.

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