The Hobbit: An Unexpected Adventure

            There was a lot at stake for The Hobbit. Would it live up to its Lord of the Rings predecessors? Would Jackson remain true to Tolkien’s work? What lore would he include? Did he have enough to work with for three movies?

            I’ve none of the real credentials of a Stephen-Colbert-level aficionado, but since reading and loving The Hobbit in elementary school and LotR parallel the movies, I’ve become something of an admirer of Peter Jackson and his adaptations. Like many Tolkien-lovers, I watched the first installment of my favorite Tolkien book with baited breath, anxiously asking the questions above.

Good Morning!

            The short answer? Yes. Jackson’s done it again: he’s given us Middle Earth in all its fictional glory. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was three hours of relief to those of us who missed Middle Earth the past decade since Return of the King came out in 2003.

            The star-studded cast was everything we hoped: McKellan, Weaving, and Serkis are brilliant in their reprised roles. Martin Freeman might actually be Bilbo Baggins, as far as I’m concerned, and Bret McKenzie (Flight of the Conchords) was delightfully present as Elrond’s bitch elf. Richard Armitage and his sexy-enough-to-rival-Benedict Cumberbatch’s-voice gave Thorin the nuanced delivery he deserved, and Aidan Turner’s (Kili) smile has given fangirls like myself something about besides Orlando Bloom to twitter about.

            The deep choir theme for the dwarves called us all back to the hills of New Zealand starting with its mysterious Far Over the Misty Mountains Cold. Musical themes were kept and used appropriately, and Howard Shore’s new score masterfully interwove the quirkier folksy songs like the dwarves’ Chip the Glasses without undue cheesiness.

            But this movie was no masterpiece. Flashbacks engaged us Tolkien-lovers, but they dragged the plodding plot off its course. Enjoyable exposition pulled it backward, and delightful interpositions based on Jackson’s previous LotR installments halted it altogether. Frodo has little to no place in his own prequel. Cate Blanchette, Chris Lee, and Ian Holm—though exquisite—were pricey. The brilliance the Unexpected Party and Riddles in the Dark were isolated by relevant but slow backstory.

            The over-developed role of Azog (a compilation of himself and his son Bolg) did wonders for centralizing the antagonist of the story as we wait for Benedict Cumberbatch, but his presence changed the character of the story, upping the violence and drama level in an appropriately Hollywood—but not coming-of-age Hobbit—manner. And who knew P.J. had it in him to turn the barely-mentioned Radagast into Middle Earth’s version of Jar-Jar Binks?

            But in the end—although some of Gandalf’s lines felt recycled and the Goblin King had to go out with a line finally stupider than Legolas’ “A diversion!”—I am grateful.

Thanks, P.J., for another taste of Middle Earth. Thanks for the rock giant battle, for Sting, Orcrist and Glamdring. Thanks for Erebor and the Misty Mountains. Thanks for the stupidity of trolls, the stubbornness of dwarves, and the brave hearts of hobbits. And thanks for two more movies: we can’t wait.

The Road Goes Ever On...

A Concert for my Subway Car

            I hate the subways. On the other hand, most people think alighting the steps of a Busan Bus is comparable to crossing the Rubicon to dance with Damocles’ sword. It’s a melee where the last man standing is sometimes a hand-cart toting ahjumma or a smelly, staring ahjusshi but it is never a foreigner clutching her bus pass and crying out to God for the lost innocence of her personal space.

            Every criticism against the bus is well-deserved, earned by a myriad of late and crowded Daewoos careening through the streets with little respect for the human life both inside and outside its walls[1]. But at least they have fresh air coming through the constantly opening doors. At least they have windows.

The subways only have blank glares, stale air, and advertisements plastered over door, windows, and wall—advertisements for plastic surgery, for clearing my skin, perfecting my hair. There are no windows, only rows of frowners, people who jostle and steal your seat and cough on you. Doors open only to admit the hordes of overly perfumed women, smelly men, and dull-eyed students—batches of automatons politely ignoring everyone else’s existence. Headphones, smartphones, and i-somethings appear from nowhere: tiny, electronic shields. No one smiles.

I don’t often take the subway during to-and-from-work times, but today I had to drop my violin off at its babysitter’s, so I hauled myself out of bed, skipped Bible study and joined the masses in the tube of disappointed dreams and despair.

Okay, I promise I’m finished being maudlin. That was the last one.

I had gone through my Bible memory verses on the bus and so attempted to pray on the subway. No dice. I’m not a good prayer at the best of times, but without a pen in my hand or even the hint of a skyline I’m hopeless. I patted my violin case in consolation and suddenly realized I was going to miss my little fiddle. Two months is a long time apart and we’ve been through a lot together—All State nerves, symphony and scholarship auditions, concerto performances, and that time when I was awarded a scholarship violin that was way better and my heart wandered for a semester or three . . .

A song floated into my mind—

            Come thou font of every blessing

            Tune my heart to sing thy grace

            Streams of mercy, never ceasing,

            Call for songs of loudest praise

            Teach me some melodious sonnet

            Sung by flaming tongues above—!

            Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,

            Mount of Thy redeeming love.

Prone to wander in prayer, prone to leave my focus behind and chase after rabbit trails of thought instead of the God I love, I was grateful for the hymn. It haunted my mind, prayer-like, until my fingers itched to share it. I patted my violin case one more time.

“Not now,” I told it quietly, even as my heart thudded with excitement. “I’m on the subway and people stare enough at the foreigner. It’s scary to be different and we already sang on Sunday. It’s time for goodbye, not worship.”

But the idea grew like the thump, thump, thump of the Telltale Heart, and I had to work hard to consider the logistics. No room, too many people, too many disapproving stares, and too many stops of embarrassment to go before I could escape. But my fingers itched, my heart thumped and I knew that within, courage and fear within were tapping their toes to the beat I would play.

In the first car on the subway, there’s a small extra space for standing. I moved there with seven stops to go, unzipping the outer case, leaving the lock untouched. With six stops to go, I took off my scarf and the fingerless glove on my left hand. I set my purse down behind me and my case next to it. I stooped and sprung the lock. A finger brushed across the strings—still in tune—a look at the bridge—still straight. Tightened my bow. Took a deep breath. The eyes of all in the car were on me, but still I faced the wall.

With five stops to go, the subway emerges from the earth’s depths and becomes an elevated train. It was then—mountains and buildings flew by; the sun peaked in the windows, past the advertisements about fixing my skin, my nose, my eyes, obscuring the screens of the i-somethings—time to begin. I slipped my puffy coat off my left shoulder and turned to my audience.

The song was raw. My fingers shook, my legs wobbled, and I worried about the jolting starts and stops as we passed through the stations. Come Thou Font, simple; Amazing Grace, timeless; Flowers of Edinburgh, a toe-tapper.

I saw one head bob with the beat, but didn’t catch anyone’s eyes. I couldn’t smile. I looked out at the sun, facing my body toward the window and my violin’s sound down the long, metallic aisle and played as best my trembling fingers could manage.

It was at once a temporary farewell to Korea, a fist-pump of fighting! to the dull-eyed students, a thumbed nose at the glaring, staring, judging anti-toe tappers frowning at me. It was a timid cry for a revolution of joy and quirkiness, a suggestion to look up from their phones, a hope that the day would be brighter than an average, pushy subway ride. It was a little song of praise, too—wobbly and raw—to God, who has grown me to the point where I have the courage to stand up in a subway car full of grey, slumped shoulders and sing.

With one stop to go, I ended on an impertinent little g-chord and packed up. I pulled my left glove back on, slipped my arm back into my coat, and wound my scarf around my neck. Violin strapped to my left side, purse hanging on my right. I checked my cell phone, readied my subway card, and stepped into the cold, cold morning. 

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[1] Today my bus driver pull a three-point 360 on a 30% incline, backtracking faster than the Millenium Falcon in order to avoid an ephemeral traffic jam. It was impressive, terrifying, and needless.

Kids Vote Republican

If you never knew it, my sister is an incredible writer. It's galling because she's actually a music teacher and spent most of her school years bs'ing her way through writing and reading assignments, but she writes a mean blog post. Most of her writing is about her job as a middle school orchestra teacher. Since not all of you grew up in a family of musical educators, I think you'll find the stories of the job entertaining. Plus my sister's a riot.

Check it out: Daily String Warm-ups: A String Teacher's Musings

Also, check out the etymology of "riot:" which is TOTALLY different that the rather coloquial usage above.

Busker Days

They have begun and they are sweet.

The weather’s gotten crisper, but the sun shines warmly to mix with the blustering autumn wind. Lee and I usually walk for at least five minutes before settling into a spot, Lee leading the way through tight crowds of Korean shoppers. When we find the spot—that in itself is the art: a spot with lots of foot traffic, but still room to play, where there aren’t any angry street vendors or too much blasting music from the nearby stores, where we can have a solid wall behind us to amplify Lee’s voice, away from any sewage grates where it smells bad—when we find that spot we detach from the stream of shoppers and swing our instruments from our shoulders.

Lee’s guitar appears seconds later, and he begins to fiddle around while I go through my more laborious process of suiting up my violin. My case is in sad disrepair, the shoulder strap broken twice over and the black exterior shamefully scuffed from toting it through buses and subways and setting it on dirty sidewalks for busking. My rosin broke a while back, and the little shard of it I’ve been using won’t last much longer. I don’t take time to look at the scuffs on my violin’s body anymore, the fingerprints, the divots and dents, the little bit of blood on the D-string from where I broke open a cut on my first finger. The discolored, slightly warped bridge has gone long distances with me—the Tennessee Waltz in the Degage homeless shelter, symphonies in LaPorte amphitheaters, Blessed be Your Name in Chiang Mai, Jason Mraz on the streets of Busan. We’ve been together for a while.

I’m not a good violinist anymore, but I like to think we’re still close.

The crowds start to gather as we tune up. Lee asks me to play a B for him, sometimes, and I wonder if he knows I don’t have a B-string and how problematic it is to tune to my whimsical second finger on the G-string. A crowd gathers, people taking pictures and video as soon as the instruments are out. We’ve learned to ignore them until the money hat is in place. Seeders—a couple of 천원's (very roughly $1), a five(오천), a ten (만원, give them options)—come out of our wallet and into the hat first. Once a group of high school boys gave us money before we even started playing. Sometimes nearby street vendors drop in a couple 천’s for us. You learn a lot about generosity and joy when you’re busking.

The ahjumma (older lady) vendor next to us smiles, showing her gold-capped tooth, and encourages us to play nearby when we ask. The jewelers down the street glare at us, certain we’ll clog up traffic (we will) and impede business (we might). Couples snuggle closer into each other’s linked arms and whisper as we play. Kids point and their parents gawk. We play for the smiles and for the schoolgirls leaning out of the sixth story window to wave at us.

Our first song is a crowd-gatherer (Stand by Me), if the crowds are willing. We cater. All the girls stare and giggle at Lee. The ahjummas smile at me and the men look baffled or concerned. When other musicians walk by, their violins at their side, or guitars or a cello strapped to their backs, they give us a nod, a smile. The bold ones jump in and play for a song or two, but that’s rare. When we finish the first, we “kahasamnida” the heck out of those who give a little money and start right into the second.Then the third. Jason Mraz, Ingrid Michaelson, HakunaMatata. Lee sings, Lee strums, I waffle about on the arpeggios, occasionally remembering harmonies and the licks we’ve practiced in between classes in our office.

Our third member for this day was Grace, a wonderful
percussionist and singer.

After four songs, Lee yells, “마지막 노래!” (last song) and we finish the set with “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You.” Sometimes people send their kids forward with money, sometimes everyone slinks away looking bored, sometimes we get large rounds of applause, and sometimes people want pictures with us. We take a break or, if the nearby vendors or shop-owners look peeved and we don’t like the acoustics or the crowds are stingy with smiles and 천원’s, we take off and move to another street corner.

Eventually we pack it in, give out our last smiles, and blend back into the crowd. On the bus we fish the천원’s out of the hat and guitar case and check the loot, straightening and counting all the single bills like a couple of change-machine heist-ers. How much do we make? Depends.On the whimsy of the crowd. Sometimes it’s good money, sometimes less so. Either way, it’s a perk.[1]

It is definitely work—it’s tiring and it takes a quick mind, a happy heart, and, for me, quite a few years of violin lessons—but it’s terribly fun. It’s like having a license to make people happy, to smile at them and to play a little music. It’s a way to connect with people who can’t speak to you about anything that matters, a way under the language barrier to something deeper and more joyful than words, a way for us to recharge, to learn that God is generous and joyful as well as merciful and just.

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[1]A perk that pays for my choco-pie and ice-cream habits, unfortunately.