A Love Letter To Dramas And Other Art Forms.

A Soldier Wearing a Ball and Chain

A Soldier Wearing a Ball and Chain

Eminent American judge and legal scholar Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. once expressed the following disturbing opinion: “If I were having a philosophical talk with a man I was going to have hanged (or electrocuted) I should say, I don’t doubt that your act was inevitable for you but to make it more avoidable by others we propose to sacrifice you to the common good. You may regard yourself as a…

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Witchcrafting Programmers

Witchcrafting Programmers: Realism in the Not-So-Realistic Lucky Romance

Composition with Color Planes (1917) by Piet Mondrian “To hell with logic! Do not talk to me about logic when I’m leading an absurd life anyway.” Those words come from Shim Bo-nui, the computing whiz who first hunts down an extremely elusive bug in a recruitment contest held by game developer Zeze Factory in the surprisingly geeky romantic comedy Lucky Romance. Obsessed with superstitions, she…

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Rediscovering the intellectual life through Asian dramas

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The Asian Drama Philosopher (A-Philosopher)’s Chair provides weekly updates of literature, art and ideas featured in Korean/Japanese/Taiwanese/Chinese dramas.

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Outreach: APC Suicide Prevention Campaign

Caution: Indirect spoilers ahead.

If a writer's work can save a life, should we be finicky about the medium the finished product officially appears in? Quite a number of us must be wishing we could turn back time and dissuade someone from taking his or her own life, however devastating circumstances might have been. Planned for slightly more than half a decade since the year a colleague committed suicide, screenwriter Kim Eun-sook's hit drama Goblin (available on Dramafever) tells the tale of a Korean mythical being known as dokkaebi, often loosely translated as "goblin," who longs to end his 939 years of immortal existence only to change his mind when he develops feelings for the human bride sent by God to fulfill this wish. Viewership soared to record-breaking numbers for Korean cable television history as the couple and their offbeat friends confronted the implications of life, death, suffering and co-existence with the miraculous, alongside heartbreaking dilemmas of living for their love versus dying for others. Adding more pathos to the series is the common tragic sin the formidable-looking army of amnesiac grim reaper bureaucrats in their universe are revealed to be undergoing rehabilitation for.

Kim Eun-sook's love for language is palpable not only in her lyrical sentences, including those used in scene descriptions found only on the script, and humorous wordplay, but also in her well-thought-out choices of poetry for mood creation purposes. Selected from the anthology Maybe The Stars Will Take Away Your Sorrow, Kim In-yook's entrancing lines in "The Physics of Love" mark the goblin's awakening to love and perhaps the allure of life, while Hortense Vlou's short but unforgettable French poem "Desert" brings out the bleakness of isolated existence. On February 10, 2017, sponsoring publisher Wisdom House shared that other books featured in this 2016-7 production include:

One Word From God - Japanese author Hiroshi Ogiwara's salaryman novel touching on work-related suicides

The Lives of Real Men - collection of meditative letters from Joseon scholars

Let's Meet! There's No More Time for Love - collection of healing essays by Korean multidisciplinary arts practitioner Shin Hyun-rim

This Unfinished Life [Chinese title] / Why I Live Today [Korean title] - deceased Chinese professor Yu Juan's answer to The Last Lecture

The Time of One Spoon - Korean writer Ku Byung-mo's fantasy novel in which a key character lives on bravely despite setbacks

There is no such thing as a free lunch, but it sure is hard to lament too much during the times the television industry pays for its costly diet of (God/goblin/reaper/ghost-inflicted) vehicle wreckage by offering nutrition for the soul.

Here is the announcement you have been scrolling down for: Suicide is not a risk emerging only on World Suicide Prevention Day. All year round, we need reminders about the sacredness of life and about the importance of being patient for things to work out, be this through self-growth, perspective changes, or arrival of unanticipated help. So, RECOMMEND a book, play or screen production that would curb suicidal ideation and give all of us a strong reason to live on. The work need not be Asian or fiction, but should preferably contain no evangelical content.

If you have a social media account, post a description of the work and attach the tag "APC Friends Against Suicide" (for Twitter users, that would have to be #APCFriendsAgainstSuicide) so that we can see each other's recommendation. To save time, you can also choose to submit a simple reply with the title of the work using the messaging functions on Tumblr or tweet the name to APC. Selected responses will be shared on Dinner Talk With The A-Philosopher's Chair, if time permits.

Help a reader choose endurance over death and help APC drum up much-needed support for its existing articles on inter/intra-group biases and cognitive illusions. Let everybody keep an open mind to the possibilities of life!

Spot

Sea Of Dream's poster: Spot the sea.

Three-Body II: Dark Forest's poster: Spot the darkness.

Hokusai's dragon legend art: Spot the dragon.

While the World Championship is underway, is anyone curious about the answer for the scenario below? It will be posted as a comment to the attached spinoff proposal if at least three people vote "YES," not counting the Cretaceous soapbender's own vote.

soapver4.tumblr.com

Vig Vang: Chess Variance Authority

Spinoff idea: All cosmos are really culture broths, each flask of which contains one set of parallel universes, and an eccentric scientist p

Ghibli Geometry Homework

Merch Bubble: A petition for Studio Ghibli to best OpenAI by channeling the 2025 trend of cheery citrus-juiced images into an endeavor with more lasting impact — revamping the image of math and captivating young learners through geometry problem sets jazzed up with visuals and story contexts from its films.

Picture the following in their relevant aesthetic backdrops:

Estimate the height Spirited Away's Chihiro successfully descends despite her fear as she speeds down a rickety stairway section with 20 horizontal steps. Each gap between the steps is 5 units in slope and 4 units in width.

Spirited Away's No-Face tries out a circular mask 3 units in radius. Its holes for his eyes are 0.3 units in radius. How many times larger in area is his fake face compared to his fake eyes?

He next tries out a fancy circular mask which outline circumscribes tightly-packed, non-overlapping circles each 0.3 units in radius. The circles are made up of k rings of six circles surrounding one circle. Two of those hexagonally packed circles form holes for his eyes. How many times larger in area is his fake face compared to his fake eyes?

Witch Kiki in Kiki's Delivery Service is on a 10-unit long broomstick tilted at 45 degrees as she takes freshly baked cinnamon rolls to a customer. As she passes by a tall structure, she notices its tip is labeled 10, 000 units. The rolls are in a 2-unit long satchel hanging halfway on the broom. Since the temperature of the air affects how fast pastries go stale, she wonders: How far are the rolls from the ground?

A bunch of kids are squeezing onto the ginormous, fluffy tummy of the furry creature Totoro from My Neighbor Totoro. Predict how many kids can stay on the tummy given the relevant simplifications, assumptions and information. (You already got the drift.)

Make no mistake. There's much virtue in the uncluttered designs of typical math worksheets: faster concept rendering, faster information perception, lower workloads, lower technical requirements and lower production costs. One might sum them up as higher time, resource and cost efficiencies. Add to those pros a potential cultivation of academic asceticism on the learners' part. That would be efficiency as well, in the sense that we meet two student developmental goals (math and discipline) in one shot.

In eyeing these efficiencies, however, teachers and allied industry players may be neglecting their numerator terms, most of which concern learner progress. That is ironically where pure quantitative logic breaks down. We are all emotional creatures. That is all the more so, all things equal, in young people whose brains are still underdeveloped. Looking around, we can see many school leavers who have not matured in time to take full advantage of educational resources temporally and financially accessible only in early life stages. Nor have they met adult figures sufficiently skilled in the elusive art of mathematical motivation. By the time such school leavers gain an appetite for delayed gratification, austere thinking as well as for the inherent beauty in quantitative subjects, adulthood commitments and sociocultural barriers like ageist biases often deter or delay their reentry into the educational system, threatening their scholastic journey and any STEM career trajectory. There is therefore a case to be made for deep yet down-to-earth arts-based engagement of apathetic young learners, many of whom struggle to perceive the relevance of abstract fields like geometry and find math problems in general mundane, through instructor-independent means. The emotional resonance and relatability of Studio Ghibli's works — evinced through their box office successes and the controversial generative art trend applying a warm, effusive and rustic Ghibli style to personal images — would make them powerful helpmates in battles against math hate viruses, which feel as far-reaching as influenza bugs.

Even engagement of kids who will become non-STEM high-fliers can make a huge difference. Ever heard of the phrase "The medium is the message"? Our communication approaches communicate values and signals beyond what our content says. In denying all exuberant expressions of emotion and wonder a place in mathematical materials, even in the face of learners impaired by hopelessness despite their best efforts, adults are reinforcing perceptions of mathematics experts as inflexible, unfeeling and boring nerds. The persistence of those stereotypes in spite of genial, approachable educators painstakingly passing down the magical field's legacy of ingenious problem-solving tactics to students is unfair. And the few pops of color in worksheets that do try to inject fun are not enough to make a strong counter-statement. In the end, non-STEM high-fliers inherit the math as well as the stereotypes, perpetuating the latter in everyday life interactions and media portrayals. Reversal of such perpetuated negativity may spur more kids, especially counterparts who struggle in non-STEM careers and could have flourished in STEM careers, to persevere in the subject and widen their career options.

Ghibli geometry should not distract attention from school-based or educational ecosystem solutions like sharing of best pedagogical practices since they involve different chief solution architects. Content drafting may be accomplished by Studio Ghibli through the blending of its imagery and story contexts with licensed, existing geometry problem sets, leaving only an ideally quick task of expert review to math educators. Moreover, pedagogy discussions and Ghibli-related visuals occupy different influential niches. One speaks to educators, from whom successful translation of advice into action is not guaranteed. The other speaks directly to students.

The existence of entertaining math video clips and games does not obliterate the potential value of Studio Ghibli's math creations either. Unlike graphics that can be transferred onto printouts, video engagement prolongs device usage, already a hot issue of concern in today's youth climate. Moreover, no math clip or game to date has matched the cultural reach and memeability of Ghibli works. The maker of a long string of fantasy films has big shoes no mortal teacher, Tiktoker, YouTuber or software developer can readily fill.

A formidable rival to pop culture, on the other hand, is pop culture itself. This proposal can be generalized to cover a wide array of quantitative subjects and popular screen brands, except that it can be problematic to bring investigations of real-world physics into universes governed by supernatural forces.

By and by, we may even wean captivated students off fancy elements after the relevant aesthetics and narrative structures coax them to develop a fondness for the subjects' intermingling of order and surprises. The capacity for such standalone devotion can stand them in good stead in professional lives dotted all over with mundane but vital to-dos. But first, we need that captivation.

A reminder to fellow writers:

Don't feel too guilty about loving a heroine you painstakingly created just because she's not a paragon of virtue. That's especially if you've thrown curses into the blazing Sun for her, and cried by her side at the edge of a dusk-lit world.

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𝙱𝚕⧲𝚌𝚔

Element hybridization-expansion idea: Racing honchos amused by a woman angling for the male-dominated world of Formula One trapped her in a