Tom Kim

Last night, Dana, Chun, Kim, and I went out to see a late showing of Amazing Grace.

Let me brief: not a good movie. Which is unfortunate, since the subject matter — the abolition of slavery in the British Empire — is an important, compelling one that deserves a much better treatment.

Everything I’m watching right now is kind of colored by the McKee experience I had, so I’ll go right ahead and say that the first thing I noticed about the movie was the weakness of the story. Not compellingly structured, with confusing flashbacks and obvious exposition. Chun suspected there were also a number of minor (if not major) inaccuracies.

So don’t go see it, but read about it elsewhere.

I’ve been giving some thought as to the place of this blog in my life. This year, for unexpected reasons, issues of privacy have been raised regarding my various web presences. And I’ve been vacillating on how transparent I want to be.

On the one hand, I’m tempted to be overly transparent. What have I to hide anyways? There seems to be a generational shift to being cavalier, even reckless, about one’s private life on the web, despite constant warnings from oldheads to be otherwise.

On the other hand, I am, indeed, an oldhead myself, my use of the term “oldhead” notwithstanding. Do I really want to give away my inner life for all to read? And do I have the luxury of time, will, and ego to do this? Am I feeding my people-pleasing inclination by blogging? Do I really need to put all this stuff down for posterity’s sake?

My conclusions: This blog is my primary web identity. This is the web site I can direct friends and potential friends toward. It’ll serve as my primary repository for small-talk-ish posts on mostly banal but perhaps mildly amusing things. I’m going to keep my expectations pretty low for this thing. In other words, I’ll keep up the sporadic posts I’ve been dribbling out these past few weeks.

I’ll be posting more heady stuff in a private blog somewhere. This is more for me and, well, me, I guess. It’ll be stuff of a more overtly spiritual nature I’m thinking. If you’re a friend and you’d like access to these posts, get a WordPress.com account (you don’t need to make a blog to have one and it’s free) and e-mail me. I don’t mind sharing, but I’ve decided to keep my “deep thoughts” on the downlow.

Fish laid one of the uniforms over the rumpled spread of his bed. He looked at it, arms akimbo, then pivoted over to his computer, shuffled around the mouse, tapped a few keys, and dialed up the speakers as it blared a wash of music. He returned to the uniform, staring as the woofers steadily rattled in their cages. Wearily he raked his right hand through his hair, his left index and thumb pinching his lower lip.

He touched his toes to pick up the page he tore out. Earmarking the dress code as a picture of a smiling black student, in uniform, knowingly acknowledging the camera as he happily trotted off to a class somewhere. Fish tore the corner picture off and flicked it under his desk before picking up a highlighter to carefully go over each line of restriction.

1. Dress shirt must be buttoned and tucked in pants.
2. Tie must be worn at all times.
3. Male students must wear dark khakis or slacks. Female students must wear dark knee-length skirts.
4. Underwear must not be visible.
5. No sneakers or caps.

“Is there something wrong, Starfish?”

Fish bristled. The use of his full name gave away her remorse. His mother wouldn’t even look at him and just kept dodging from the stove to the refrigerator. He hated to see her capitulate like this, which, of course, drove him to take advantage of her capitulation.

“I need seven more uniforms.”

---

Okay, so I’m thinking Fish is now going to undertake a project of altering the uniforms to see what he can get away with. I need some cool ideas, though, on what he might do. Know of any?

My seminar was held in the Director’s Guild Association Theater on 57th. Wandering around my lunch break, I found this wonderful “paperie” just a couple doors west. Has all things paper — cards, journals, scrapbooking, colors, textures, craft books, etc. This being midtown, things do come at a price, but it was wonderful browsing through.

Kate’s Paperie
140 W 57th St., NY, 10019
1282 Third Ave, NY, 10021
561 Broadway, NY, 10012
8 W 13th St, NY, 10011
125 Greenwich Ave, Greenwich, CT, 06830

Having gotten back from the McKee Story Seminar, Yellow Stereo’s post of memorable movie music has an air of synchronicity. Go and remember those climactic moments all over again.

Tiffin
710 W. Girard Ave.
215-922-1297

Indian takeout and delivery. (Pressured by No-Libbers to add sit-in within the storefront). Highly recommended
Created by a founding partner of Karma. Order early off the web for a discount.

Metro Diner
Upper West Side
2641 Broadway
New York, NY 10025
(212) 866-0800

Diner. Good egg cream. Also tried: hanger steak salad, fries. Recommended

Kunjip
9 W. 32nd St., New York, NY 10001
212-216-9487
Open 24 hours

Korean food
Serves kae-rahn-jim as part of the pahn-jjan!

Which means, hopefully, that I’ll get around to updating this blog. I’ve started a tumblelog at Tumblr (tomkim.tumblr.com) since this blog is starting to get pretty sparse anyways. And (gasp!) I’ve started a twitter as well (twitter.com/tomkim). I’ll post feeds of them in the sidebar so you can now see even more minutiae about me. Right.

From a forwarded e-mail:

Dunkin donuts has FREE Ice cofee today to celebrate being the “best coffee in america”

Rita’s water ice is free today to celebrate the first day of spring.

Have a happy day!