Tell us about a few of your favorite books, poems, authors, films, plays, pieces of music, musicians, performers, paintings, artists, magazines, or newspapers. Feel free to touch on one, some, or all of the categories listed, or add a category of your own.
Hi. English is not my mother tongue, so I'm pretty sure my essay is full of awkward sentences. I'm more than willing to accept harsh criticisms. Thanks! (+, i'm not sure whether I have to connect the reasons why i like to my personal experiences :( )
Film: Frozen.
I never was a Disney fan. In fact, I am more of Quentin Tarantino or David Fincher lover. However, the famous "Let it go" sequence all over facebook newsfeed led me to this movie and broke my prejudice against Frozen. If I were to list the reasons why I fall in love with Frozen, I could easily write a scripture of it. However, to talk about the most important two, I would choose 1. The message and 2. The metaphor.
All four main characters of the movie have defects and wounds: sorcery, social misfit, being rejected by a sister, and lack of affection due to twelve elder brothers. By the song fixer upper, they told me by love - whether it is of family or of lover - I can overcome such defects. It is certainly true that the movie had rough flow. However, this simple message compensated for drawbacks. This simple message comforted me when I was suffered from defensive pessimism.
At the same time, the queer metaphor within the movie was refreshing. Elsa always closes 'the door', or in other words, 'the closet'. The famous line "Conceal it, don't feel, don't let it show" can be seen as her hiding weakness. However, the only weakness that can be thought both a magic, or a difference, and a sorcery, or a wrongness, that can turn a person into a monster within a second when failing to conceal, that secludes from a person from society when being revealed is homosexuality. Her father stating that she was born with it makes this metaphor even more clear. Under such metaphor, Let it go is a song of queer who just experienced outing by her own family. As a person who think homosexuality is not wrong, but different, I highly value the fact that Disney melt such metaphor into childrens' movie without single incompatibility.
Music: A Sailboat of Time- FANA
I tend to remember music by not their melodies, but the situation.
Last summer, I was at Turkey for 10 days with 10 other people I've never met as a part of governmental program. At the last day in Turkey, In the bus heading to the airport, most of us were sleeping after feasting upon mackerel kebabs as the last meal in Turkey. I think Minsik and I -though we were about to fall asleep- were the only ones awake. We were two of the different kinds; He was into hip hop while I was into jazz and indie music. He dyed his hair yellow while mine was natural black. He was from Gwangju while I was from Daejeon. Maybe it was the difference that connected us so fast. As the bus entered a tunnel, he offered one side of his earphone. The name of the rap was 'A Sailboat of Time'. He said that listening to this rap had been his private-farewell-habit. The rap was about how it is natural to forget people and memories after parting. In the tunnel of dim lights, drunk with sleep and fatigue, I felt as if I navigated through the lyrics and beats. As the bus got out of the tunnel, bright streetlamps filled my sight. Suddenly I felt something welling up in my heart. Maybe it was because of sorrow of farewell, Maybe it was because of sorrow of my forgetting those ten people some day in future, just like the rap lyrics. Staring the river reflecting streetlights through the window, I cried without making a noise.
This memory makes me cringe. However, I sometimes miss the sensitivity of that night.
Musician: MOT(eAeon)
I am a big fan of MOT. While he carefully designed his sound with electric circuits and used artificial noises for his first album, he only used acoustic instruments such as double bass and piano for his second album. However, there is one sentiment that penetrates his first and second album: gloominess. His peculiarly feeble voice adds depth to the depressing chord progression. Such melancholy- or even grotesqueness- often presents me catharsis. His song presents me the feeling of seeing a bottom part of a skeletal tree sunk in murky lake covered in thick fog; His song drags me into the pit of melancholy when I suffer from unbearable sorrow and loneliness, and allows me to bring up all the emotions; His melancholy, instead of adding up, uses up my negative emotions
