{"id":37507,"date":"2020-12-11T09:00:04","date_gmt":"2020-12-11T16:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/?p=37507"},"modified":"2020-12-10T12:40:26","modified_gmt":"2020-12-10T19:40:26","slug":"colin-marshall-essayist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/colin-marshall-essayist\/","title":{"rendered":"Colin Marshall, Essayist\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Our\u00a0guest this week is <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Colin Marshall<\/a>. Colin previously hosted the podcasts <em>The\u00a0Marketplace of Ideas and Notebook\u00a0on Cities and Culture<\/em>.\u00a0Now living in Seoul, he writes for publications like Boing Boing, Open Culture, the <em>Los\u00a0Angeles Review of Books<\/em>,\u00a0the <em>Times\u00a0Literary Supplement<\/em>,\u00a0and the <i>New\u00a0Yorker.<\/i> You can find Colin on Twitter <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/colinmarshall\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@colinmarshall<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/945169705%3Fsecret_token%3Ds-UOwvsu7SApA&amp;color=%23ff5500&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false&amp;show_teaser=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"166\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<div style=\"font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc; line-break: anywhere; word-break: normal; overflow: hidden; white-space: nowrap; text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif; font-weight: 100;\"><a style=\"color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;\" title=\"Cool Tools\" href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/cool-tools\" target=\"_blank\">Cool Tools<\/a> \u00b7 <a style=\"color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;\" title=\"256: Colin Marshall\" href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/cool-tools\/256-colin-marshall\/s-UOwvsu7SApA\" target=\"_blank\">256: Colin Marshall<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/cool-tools-show-and-tell\/id605920446?mt=2\">Subscribe to the Cool Tools Show on iTunes<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/feedpress.me\/cooltoolsshow\">RSS<\/a>\u00a0| <a href=\"https:\/\/drive.google.com\/file\/d\/16Feg_a6JlIS5ae_4KHpmOkRlMaj7-NZ_\/view?usp=sharing\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Transcript<\/a> |\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/tag\/cool-tools-show\/\">See all the Cool Tools Show posts on a single page<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Show notes:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-37509\" src=\"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2020\/12\/talktomeinkorean.jpg\" alt=\"talktomeinkorean\" width=\"500\" height=\"256\" srcset=\"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2020\/12\/talktomeinkorean.jpg 500w, https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2020\/12\/talktomeinkorean-300x154.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><br \/>\n<strong>Korean Language<\/strong><br \/>\nDon\u2019t\u00a0Come to Korea Without It. Of course, many foreigners do come to Korea without it. When first I visited the country, I\u2019d already been living in Los Angeles\u2019 Koreatown for years, so I experienced no real culture shock \u2014\u00a0except for the discovery that some expatriates, including those of decades\u2019 standing, have never bothered to learn much Korean. That they\u2019re also the ones constantly complaining about life in Korea is unlikely to be a coincidence. Like most countries, this one is best experienced with some command of the local language, no matter how elementary, and online courses like those offered by\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/talktomeinkorean.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Talk\u00a0to Me in Korean<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0free apps like\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.duolingo.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Duolingo<\/a>\u00a0(which\u00a0even here I use to brush up on other languages like Japanese, Mandarin, French, and Spanish) have made it easier than ever to get to grips with the basics.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-37510\" src=\"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2020\/12\/kanu.jpg\" alt=\"kanu\" width=\"500\" height=\"500\" srcset=\"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2020\/12\/kanu.jpg 500w, https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2020\/12\/kanu-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2020\/12\/kanu-300x300.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/geni.us\/0IOI\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Kanu\u00a0instant coffee<\/a> ($10, 30pk)<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.lareviewofbooks.org\/the-korea-blog\/coffee-life-korea\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Coffee\u00a0culture has exploded in Korea<\/a>\u00a0since\u00a0the late 1990s. Not only does Seoul have more Starbucks locations per capita than any other city in the world, it also has even more domestic chains and independents than I could\u2019ve imagined before coming here. The pandemic has put something of a cramp on caf\u00e9 life, especially for writers like me, who do their work in such places. But the coffee situation is still far superior to what it would\u2019ve been thirty years ago, when everyone\u2019s coffee of choice was a heavily sweetened brand called Maxim, which many Koreans still drink today. But in recent years Maxim has introduced an instant black americano line called Kanu, and I admit to starting each and every day with a cup or two of the stuff myself.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-37511\" src=\"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2020\/12\/spotify.png\" alt=\"spotify\" width=\"500\" height=\"262\" srcset=\"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2020\/12\/spotify.png 500w, https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2020\/12\/spotify-300x157.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spotify.com\/us\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Spotify<\/a><br \/>\nDespite\u00a0having been the top music-streaming service in the United States for years, Spotify is only now preparing to launch in South Korea, though \u2014 as always with international sites and apps \u2014 a variety of domestic equivalents already exist. Of course, like many other Western expatriates here, I simply used a VPN (namely\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tunnelbear.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tunnelbear<\/a>)\u00a0to sign up for an account. This past year I\u2019ve been listening start-to-finish through the entire discographies of the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/colinmarshall\/status\/1220512234478039041\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Beatles<\/a>,\u00a0the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/colinmarshall\/status\/1256004805358612481\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Beach\u00a0Boys<\/a>,\u00a0and the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/colinmarshall\/status\/1327068910265397248\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rolling\u00a0Stones<\/a>,\u00a0hugely influential bands whose music I\u2019d somehow always ignored. Spotify made this much project much easier than it would\u2019ve been just a decade ago.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-37512\" src=\"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2020\/12\/theworld.jpg\" alt=\"theworld\" width=\"338\" height=\"500\" srcset=\"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2020\/12\/theworld.jpg 338w, https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2020\/12\/theworld-203x300.jpg 203w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 338px) 100vw, 338px\" \/><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/geni.us\/eHde\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Jan\u00a0Morris\u2019 The\u00a0World: Life and Travel 1950-2000<\/a><br \/>\nA\u00a0few weeks ago, I would have named Pico Iyer and Jan Morris as my two favorite living writers of place. Now I can only name Iyer, Morris having passed on late last month at the impressive age of 94. As well-traveled as she was long-lived, she made her first claim to fame as a writer by accompanying Sir Edmund Hillary\u2019s history-making 1953 expedition to the top of Mt. Everest. She did so as James Morris, and in 1974 wrote the book Conundrum on\u00a0her subsequent journey of another kind, from male to female. Whether as James or Jan, Morris was what <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PicoIyer\/status\/1329909486987841536\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Iyer\u00a0remembers as<\/a> \u201cthe\u00a0kindest, shrewdest and most indefatigable master portraitist of cities,\u201d and it is to the wide range of the pieces anthologized in The\u00a0World I\u00a0often turn for instruction when I do my own work of urban portraiture \u2014\u00a0or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/cities\/2019\/oct\/17\/a-way-of-learning-from-everything-the-rise-of-the-city-critic\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">city\u00a0criticism<\/a>,\u00a0as I like to call it. Whenever I&#8217;m feeling like I don&#8217;t quite know how to, in writing, approach a place or how to frame something. I can just flip almost at random to one of her pieces, and it just reminds me of what&#8217;s possible in writing about places. You don&#8217;t have to write perfectly straightforwardly in a travel writing sense about every place you go to.<\/p>\n<p><strong>About Colin&#8217;s projects<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<p>Since moving to Korea five years ago I\u2019ve written <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.lareviewofbooks.org\/category\/the-korea-blog\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the Los Angeles Review of Books\u2019 Korea Blog<\/a>, in whose essays I cover literature, cinema, current events, and daily life in this country<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve jumped on the Substack bandwagon with a newsletter called The <a href=\"https:\/\/colinmarshall.substack.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Books on Cities<\/a>, which is about just that. I write about sort of long form essay reviews on city books, new and old about cities all around the world.<\/p>\n<p>Despite\u00a0having moved to Seoul\u00a0\u2014 and currently hampered from going anywhere else \u2014 I\u2019m at work on a book about Los Angeles called\u00a0<em>The\u00a0Stateless City<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cool Tools Show 256:\u00a0Colin Marshall<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13684,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[1559],"tags":[1472],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37507"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13684"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37507"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37521,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37507\/revisions\/37521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}