Q Branch

Here are pictures taken at the Samsung COEX Megabox press screening of Ryoo Seung-wan’s latest film, Dazimawa Lee, slated to hit Korean theaters on August 14, 2008. 

Q & A session following a well-received screening.

Im Won-hee (left) plays a Korean super-agent, circa 1942, with a mission to retrieve a golden Buddha’s statue with the agent’s list of names. Park Si-yeon (right) plays his love interest and fellow agent, Mari.

One more Park Si-yeon. My apology that the picture quality is not up to the professional standard. It was just me and my trusty Pentax digital camera.

Er… one more. ^ ^

Director Ryoo (left) fields questions.

Super-cool Ryoo Seung-beom, the director’s brother, who plays the film’s best and funniest character, “Border Lynx.”

Hiya folks, I finally had enough time, freed from the unusually stuffy teaching schedule and equally insane weather, to come back to Q Branch. So far the most asked-about item I have uploaded here has been the interview I have conducted with John Shirley, one of the founders of cyberpunk SF and a friend of mine.  The first half of the interview was uploaded almost half a year ago and I have since reneged on the promise for a follow-up.  

I beg forgiveness of my friends, colleagues and SF fans who have probably been wondering what I had exactly done with the rest of the interview.   My excuse is that I have suffered a car accident (discussed in some detail below) on February, but I know, this is really an excuse and nothing more.  I am sorry!  

The following interview mianly covers Mr. Shirley’s ouput classified as cyberpunk SF.  I am going to schedule a third and probably final interview that will deal with his more recent works, including the horror classics Wetbones, Demons and The View from Hell.  For an introduction to John Shirley, check out my previous interview entry (December 27, 2007).

* The following interview was conducted on November 12, 2007. All contents therein are copyrighted to Kyu Hyun Kim. No citation without proper acknowledgement of the interviewer is permitted.

Q: Would you say you were first noticed as an SF writer through the short story collection, Heatseeker?

JS: Yeah, it did get plenty of attention. It got some really good reviews and one really negative review.

Q: Really?!

JS: Um yeah, I later found out the reason behind the negative review and I cannot tell you the whole background story behind it. It was in a British publication. A friend of the reviewer was a powerful guy who was mad at me…I’m not kidding. I know it sounds made up, as an excuse for that hostile review, but it’s true. But I don’t want to name names.

Q: Oh no. (Laughter)

JS: Well, anyway, yes, Heatseeker was the first bona-fide cyberpunk fiction collection that I wrote.

Q: When did In Darkness Waiting, one of my favorite novels of yours, come out?

JS: In the ‘80s.

Q: It seems that you have dabbled in genres other than science fiction from the very beginning of your career.

JS: Right, the first novel I wrote… not the first one published… but the first one I wrote was Dracula in Love. It wasn’t published until five years after I’d written it, and it was a kind of combination of horror and occult fantasy. I was reading Carl Jung and Aleister Crowley, as well as the biography of Vlad the Impaler. I was one of the first writers to combine the real life of the Vlad the Impaler and the character of Dracula as written by Bram Stoker. This was some years before Francis Coppola’s movie, Bram Stoker’s Dracula. [The filmmakers] probably didn’t read my novel. Probably.

Q: Well, I am one of your fans who had read In Darkness Waiting first, and then discovered Heatseeker. It was several years down the lane that I became aware of your reputation as one of the founders of cyberpunk fiction.

JS: In Darkness Waiting was originally a science fiction novel.

Q: It does retain a lot of SF flavor.

JS: It does. I was really desperate to sell a book at the time (Laughter). I really needed money. This is the reality of writing business. Anyway the editor asked me to change the story so that it could be marketed as horror. That was the time when Stephen King was getting big, and I said OK.

Q: Was it successful?

JS: Well, it didn’t sell like hundreds of thousands of copies but it did sell, enough so that they bought another novel of mine. So yeah, it was successful in that regard. Originally it was about a parasite who suppressed empathy in people. I guess it had some commonality with other SF stories about various parasitical organisms, like “Who Goes There?” and Robert Heinlein’s…

Q: The Puppet Master?

JS: Right. The basic idea is that we are subject to a kind of devolution of character, at the behest of any arbitrary stimulus, so that we go in the matter of seconds from human beings to the most brutal form of animal. That is the central horror of human life. To be crucified in the condition between the higher and the lower being.

Q: Reading your earlier works, I remember being very sympathetic to your severely critical view of a cluster of scientific positions, which might be loosely identified as “behavioral science,” and which survives in different forms today, that claim a wide range of human behavior can be codified as formulae, as responses to external stimuli, for instance, so if you know these formulae you can manipulate human beings.

JS: Yeah, I reject reductionist interpretations of the human mind. And eugenics and other types of deterministic views, I reject them too. But I do accept that we are actually largely “programmed” creatures. I agree that 90% of our personalities are determined in the womb. However, whatever small percentages not determined by our genes and hard-wires and biochemistry are genuinely free, and these are also the most ignored or under-nourished parts of ourselves and maybe the most important. So the larger truths of socio-biology I think obscure its limitations.

Q: Yes, yes.

JS: Now there is a resurgence of controversies about the relationship between genetic determinants and social traits like intelligence. James Watson and others want to bring this argument to bear upon, say, race relations. But how can we measure something like intelligence in terms of race when we have barely dealt with the legacy of slavery and all its historical, psychological and cultural repercussions? After all, civil rights have been around only for two generations in the U. S., and not even strictly enforced at that. On top of that, we have a damaged society which passes crippling effects of the oppression of one generation to another. So when people assume that genetics is the primary determinant of how human beings behave they are not looking at the full picture. History is also a determinant. On the other hand, if we deny the big role biology plays [in deciding how we act and live] then we are condemned to live as machines because we’re unaware of our automatic nature. Unless we acknowledge our own mechanicality, we cannot struggle with it.

God help you with transcribing all this. (Laughter)

Q: Stephen Jay Gould’s Mismeasure of Man comes to mind.

JS: Yes, I’ve read much of Gould’s works. I firmly stand on the side of evolution but I am not, shall I say, “strictly materialistic” as he is…

Q: I actually consider you one of the most spiritual fiction writers I have ever known.

JS: Yeah?

Q: Yes. I mean, if I compare the depiction of Jesus in your novel [Silicone Embrace] and Jesus in, say, Gore Vidal’s satire [Live from Golgotha], Jesus in your novel is a lot more convincing, even though he turns out to be a space alien (Laughter). What I mean is your Jesus is portrayed as someone who I can imagine as inspiring devotion and faith in real life.

JS: Well, I read a lot of spiritual and mystically-inspired works.

Q: All right. Shall we talk about A Splendid Chaos? Was it from ‘80s?

JS: Yes, early ‘80s.

Q: So it can be classified under cyberpunk?

JS: I suppose so. But it was… also an attempt to put into words the ecstactic vision of an alternative world. Something Saint Theresa of Avila might have had, you know. But it also had a very old-fashioned adventure-tale structure to it. There’s some Edgar Rice Burroughs and Jack Vance in it, maybe even Tolkien. The premise of all these beings brought from different worlds and planets to one place…

Q: That was the first time I have encountered so many alien species in one book, other than in a compendium of Japanese TV monsters (Laughter).

JS: I tried to imagine as many types of aliens as I could, and crowd them all into a global kind of menagerie, to induce a frisson of the fantastic. I probably had too much of that and not much of a plot. (Laughter) But I was trying to develop a surrealist landscape that also had an internal logic to it. If anyone wants to read it fresh I hope they get hold of the new edition out from Babbage Press, which I have revised somewhat. It reads smoother. I have also revised and updated the Eclipse books and Cellars. They are not watered down at all, just made more in line with the reader’s contemporary world, and I took out some clumsy, jejune bits.

Q: This is an opportune moment to move onto the Eclipse books. I think I heard you once saying they may be the best pieces of writing you have done. I don’t know whether you still feel that way about them.

JS: Certainly they are the best sustained science fiction writing I have done.

Q: Do you feel “attached” to some characters?

JS: I was very identified with rock singer characters in the novels. I was young, after all. I went out of my way to make women characters strong. I was influenced by feminism in the 1970s. I was criticized in some quarters, even by Samuel Delaney, I think…

 Q: Delaney? Really?!

JS: Yeah, and anyway they criticized Eclipse books for containing gender bias. But you know, not only were there powerful women warriors in my books but also a full-blown lesbian character. I might be the first SF writer to put in a lesbian sex scene in a novel, unless Joanna Russ beat me to it. (Laughter)

Q: Many of things in Eclipse books that were totally science fictional when they were first published have since become reality, sometimes in interestingly round-about ways. The planetary environments are threatened by neo-liberal, world-spanning, multinational corporations: new technologies, including information technologies, turned out to be double-edged swords…

JS: Yeah. In the Eclipse books corporations get bigger and bigger by consolidating themselves. In my new novel, coming out this year, Black Glass [see Interview No. 1] there are only 33 corporations left in the world, except for tiny “micro-companies” that fly under their radar. Black Glass describes an underground stock market: a black stock market ran for these micro-companies. In Eclipse, I wrote about the emergence of a gigantic media conglomerate named WorldTalk, which is basically controlled by a group of racist, fundamentalist Christians. Well, in 1990s and 2000s similar if not exactly identical situations have developed, as we all know: Enron, Fox News and its support of Bush, the Christian right ideology actually dictating Bush’s foreign policy, and so on. I wrote about the Neo-Soviet movement in Russia, a combination of nationalist and authoritarian movements, and again, there is a real danger that someone like Putin can push Russia in that direction.

Q: Would you agree that Eclipse books are more closely aligned with the “dystopian” outlook of the early cyberpunk fiction?

JS: I would call it “realistic.” Not dystopian. We [cyberpunk writers] were realists. Global warming is certainly one factor that can precipitate massive military or other conflicts in the future. Population growth and depletion of resources still remain big problems. These are not matters of speculation, or projection into the future. They are realities we live with.

Q: I don’t want to name names but there are some hard science fiction writers who seem to assume this position that… say, 500 years of human civilization is nothing compared to the geological or astronomical scale of time… and are more concerned with really big questions like whether the universe is contracting or expanding, or contracting first and then expanding, and sort of become cavalier and humdrum about the issues that might literally wipe us out… their attitude is, like, science will eventually find a way to fix all these problems, so what’s the big fuss?

JS: It’s a choice of perspective.  But I can’t argue with them, anyway, since unfortunately, I haven’t read much of them (Laughter). Hard science fiction is not my favorite genre. It hasn’t been since I was young. I’m sure there’s good science fiction out there, but I love historical fiction and biographies.

Q: Really, wow.

JS: Yep, I am reading a biography of Lord Nelson at this moment. And I just finished reading Plutarch’s chapter on Julius Caesar. Very up-to-date. (Laughter) I think science fiction writers who think there will be some magical technological solution, I don’t know, like nanotechnology, that will fix our current problems in one bang, are living in a fantasy-land. We are all living on one planet with demonstrably limited resources, okay? I definitely think things will get worse before they get better. We might have millions of people rendered homeless, starving or dying from war and global warming. We might lose some major cities: they might go underwater, or blown up by a terrorist nuclear bomb. But I think human race will muddle through it all, and if we are lucky, we will end up with a more thoughtful and less wasteful civilization around 22nd century.

Q: Hey, you sound like H. G. Wells.

JS: He was a genius, you know (Laughter).

(To be continued to Part 3… and this time I will upload it in a zippy!!)

CROSSING THE LINE. A Very Much So/Passion Film Production. 2006, United Kingdom, 1 hour 32 minutes. With the additional support from BBC, E Pictures, Koryo Tours, Cine Qua Non, Dongsoong Art Center. Directed by Daniel Gordon. Cinematography: Nick Bennet. Edited by Peter Haddon. Music by Heather Fenoughty. Sound edited by Stevie Haywood. Sound mixed by Adam Mendez. Sound effects by Samantha Storer. Narrated by Christian Slater.

In 2002, the BBC documentarian Daniel Gordon made a heartfelt and crowd-pleasing chronicle, The Game of Their Lives, of North Korea’s football team and its incredible advance into the World Cup quarterfinals in 1966. Greatly pleased by the final product, North Korean authorities granted Gordon an unprecedented level of access for a foreign filmmaker, allowing him to record daily lives of two young girls preparing for an eye-poppingly grandiose (and for many people, obscenely totalitarian) “Mass Game” in celebration of the Great Leader Kim Jong Il. The resulting documentary, A State of Mind, sharply divided the viewer responses outside NK: some consider it nothing more than a detestable apologia for the quasi-monarchical dictatorship, while others see it as a refreshing corrective to the usual anti-Communist palavers that reduce North Koreans into little more than brainless termites. Instead of playing it safe for his next project, however, Gordon went ahead and tackled an even more potentially controversial topic—the life-story of Private James Drasnok, an American soldier who in 1962 walked over the DMZ, riddled with uncharted mines, and “defected” to North Korea, and has lived there since. The result is one of the most fascinating documentaries about North Korea ever made: but the film also uncovers some surprising, even poignant, episodes of intersection between American and Korean histories.

Despite his somewhat heavy-handed effort to (visually) draw the parallel between the aggressively nationalistic cultures of North Korea and the United States, Gordon manages to keep afloat in the air disparate, often mutually incompatible, perspectives on the bizarre life history of Private Drasnok, ably navigating through the treacherous ideological waters. Certainly most North Koreans will be hard pressed to see “Crossing” as a negative portrayal of their own country (Kim Jong Il himself acknowledged abduction of Japanese citizens as a part of its insane “spy training” scheme in 2002, so discussing that issue is no longer officially discouraged), but those who insist on seeing North Korea as an oppressive totalitarian state will also find plenty of evidence here to back up their view. Perhaps the surest indication that Gordon has pulled off this difficult balancing act is that we as viewers cannot easily come to a conclusion about the film’s protagonist.

Drasnok’s life is indeed the stuff that proves the adage “truth is stranger than fiction.” A young Southerner, born in Virginia to a broken home and abject poverty (described by him as a “living hell”), he was a failure as a soldier as well. Cocky, ignorant and totally devoid of discipline, Drasnok crossed the DMZ seemingly out of sheer adolescent stupidity, like a teenager who has no loose change in his jeans pockets so decides to rob a liquor store, armed with a switchblade, and was as surprised as anyone when he was welcomed as a valuable tool for anti-American propaganda, eventually given a chance to lead a materially comfortable, middle-class life that surely would have been denied to him had he stayed in the U.S. (It might surprise some viewers to learn that North Korea was well ahead of South Korea in economic growth and overall quality of living conditions at least until mid-1960s, exceeding the average annual GNP growth rate of 20 % in the years between 1954 and 1960)

Soon enough, he and his fellow U.S. army defectors (yes, there were more) fell into the familiar routine of the annoying young American expats, cruising in a cluster, drinking, horsing around and chasing after women. The life in North Korea had begun to go sour by late 1960s: the Americans were unable to withstand the monotony of a “peaceful” Communist  social behavior and the lack of purpose in their lives. They finally attempted to jump ship to Europe via the Soviet embassy, which promptly sent them packing. Eventually, it was Comrade Kim Jong Il who came to their rescue, by casting Drasnok and his colleagues as seedy imperialist villains in his ambitious film productions, making them overnight into NK equivalents of Hollywood stars.  This portion of the documentary is simply amazing, as we are treated to rarely seen (certainly for me, never-before-seen) excerpts from such legendary North Korean megahits as Nameless Heroes, and footages of the American defectors hamming it up as hilariously grotesque caricatures of their own countrymen. Dresnok in these films suggests in appearance a no-talent cousin of Laird Cregar. Sargeant Charles Jenkins—Dresnok’s arch-nemesis, resembling Ross Perot after a Jenny Craig diet regimen, more about him later—at one point shows up with a huge skullcap makeup, as if he is possessed by the Brain from Planet Arous): they must be seen to be believed.

Equally amazing is the story of Dresnok’s marriage and family. One neat trick Gordon pulls off is casting Dresnok and other defector’s children as “actors” playing their fathers in a ‘60s black and white re-enactment sequence. Dresnok’s son, James, half-American and half-Romanian, is a handsome, white young man, studying English in the prestigious Pyongyang Foreign Language University: it’s positively unreal to hear James speaking in fluent Northern-accented Korean and then in halting Konglish for the interview. Dresnok’s cute-as-a-button youngest son from his second marriage to a half-Somali Korean woman is one-quarter white, one-quarter African and half-Korean. So Dresnok’s own family in the world’s perhaps most ethnically and culturally homogeneous nation—as Professor Bruce Cumings points out in the docu, that never wavers in the belief that “Koreans are the most superior race on the planet”—turns out to be many degrees more multiethnic than a typical American one.

The docu abounds with such ironies scaling the height of surrealism, not the least of which is the fact that Dresnok still resolutely remains such an unreconstructed “American,” shoveling bonhomie in thick Southern drawl, teaching NK students English as a “native speaker,” (this will sound very familiar to many South Korean students) enjoying illegal fishing expeditions, and hailed affectionately by North Koreans who recognize “Arthur the Evil American” from the movies. One cannot help think that it was his quintessential qualities as an American, which made him a misfit in the U.S. army, helped him survive and even flourish in North Korea.

In the latter half, considerable dramatic tension is generated when Sergeant Jenkins chose in 2004 to leave NK with his two daughters and join his wife already in Japan, subsequently authoring an autobiography condemning the Kim regime (translated into English and published just this month from University of California Press). Dresnok angrily rebuts much of the claim made in Jenkins’ account of how the defectors were treated, including one that NK officials scorched tattoos on their bodies as a part of re-education procedure (according to him, the burning of tattoos was a strictly voluntary act). It’s clear that underlying the politically charged mutual denunciations is a longstanding feud between Jenkins and Dresnok that seems to hark back to the 1960s: Dresnok relates with obvious relish a story of beating Jenkins up when the latter tried to pull his rank on the former.

In the end, we are left with Dresnok’s sly, gold-capped smile, pondering what it all means. Like all good documentaries, by showing an organically linked whole of the elements that are at first glance totally incompatible with one another and deftly maneuvering out from ideological agendas of national actors, Crossing the Line re-focuses our attention to the human foibles and ingenuity usually swept beneath the grand narratives of ideological struggles and national conflicts. I most certainly wouldn’t buy a used car from Dresnok, but at the same time he is way too uncomfortably “ordinary American” for many viewers to dismiss him as a devious traitor or a mouthpiece for socialist ideals.  The Novel Prize winning writer Orhan Pamuk once stated to the effect that the real task of an artist is to show the people so utterly divided by language, culture, custom and beliefs are, in fact, exactly the same at their core. Whatever your opinion may be about this docu, and many viewers will come away from watching it with their negative views about North Korea confirmed, or even reinforced, I have no doubt that it achieved its artistic (and humanistic) aim in this sense.

DVD Presentation:

Kino Video. NTSC. Single Layer. Region 1. Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 1.85:1. Audio: Korean and English Dolby Digital 2.0. Subtitles: English. Supplements: An interview with director Daniel Gordon, photo galleries.

Kino Video is not exactly 100% reliable in terms of quality presentation of foreign titles, but Crossing the Line’s predominantly HD-video visuals are shown in a reasonably attractive fashion. Considering the large number of archival footage, the quality of video fluctuates wildly, especially in the first half, but I haven’t noticed any significant transfer problem. The soundtrack is quite ordinary: the techno-minimalist music score sounds a little tinny, but it serves the purpose. The only substantial supplementary material is a 30-minute interview with the director. It is informative but the questions basically make him re-cap the film in a digest form, so it will be a total spoiler for those who haven’t seen the main feature. I’d like to know why Christian Slater was chosen to narrate the film (was a good choice, by the way): maybe Gordon explains it and I missed it.

Angela drove me to the car pound in Hayward to take the last look at the wrecked Honda Civic and retrieve the items it was carrying inside at the time of the crash. Unreturned rented DVDs, library books, a blanket, CDs, some maps and Triple-A guidebooks. We donated the half-opened box of spring water to the garage owner.

Contrary to my first impression, the windshield was not shattered. I suppose I would have cut my faces or at least found glass fragments in my hair had it happened. I did find them in the left pocket of my jacket, actually. I am sure a few of them had been embedded in my skin, since ejected out as my body slowly heals.

I bet some of you didn’t know some airbags are PINK. Seeing that made me laugh, that in turn hurt my sides really badly.

The acrid, burning smell I remember from the immediate aftermath is gone. It looks like a movie prop now instead of a real car, and appears to be in peace with its wreckedness, which somehow comforts me.

Before I departed, I touched the car’s hood and thanked it for helping me commute and indulging my habits and desires. It wasn’t your fault, it was mine, and I am sorry you died. Goodbye, Honda Civic Two.

 My thanks again for Angela’s help in uploading the pictures.

They are kind of self-explanatory. More might be coming, if I don’t tire of drawing them. I am grateful for my wife’s help in uploading them.

Hi folks, further delays on everything. I am barely getting out of my facial paralysis (which seems to be thankfully leaving me) and then I totaled my trusted (although pretty beat-up) Honda Civic on Route 880, en route to San Jose.

No, no serious internal injuries, no broken spine or neck, no severed limbs.  It’s just bruises and smashed nails.  It hurts like hell, of course, and I can now barely move my butt out of the bed.  I will be like this for probably a week or so, and after that will have to commute via Amtrak (Sigh…). 

Right after the accident Good Samaritans (including a doctor and a registered nurse) immediately came to my rescue, laying me down on the ground (I was dazedly walking out of the car, dripping blood from my hand and nose) and stabilizing my spine, etc. until paramedics came and took care of me.

Having seen countless car crashes in Route 80 while commuting for 11 years, I know I was seriously lucky that I came away with only this much damage, even with my left leg joint swollen like it has grown a purple-colored mango fruit. 

I am truly grateful to Good Samaritans who helped me: and also to Angela’s colleagues and to my friend Sophie Volpp for food and healing.  My wife, although away for seminar attendance, knew exactly what to do and kept the emotional trauma and chaos to the absolute bare minimum. My apologies to Mr. Shirley and his fans for yet another delay in the interview!  I will ask my able assistant to upload it if I cannot do it myself.

Aigo, I am sore. *_*  Hopefully I will come back here soon, even if to just complain about how I hurt all over.

Well, my book is finally out. Amazon.com somehow still lists it as MIA, but the bookstores will be receiving copies pretty soon. It’s No. 247 of East Asian Monograph Publication Series from Harvard University Asia Center. I am honored to be included among this distinguished group of authors.

In case you are wondering, the creature in front page is not Cthulhu, it’s a plain ol’ squid (actually, supposed to be an octopus but it clearly has ten legs) surrounded by a bunch of seashells. Why squid and seashells? Ah… that’s something you have to discover on your own… no, I am kidding, I will put up an explanation sometime, if anyone is curious.

Again a round of thanks to my friends, colleagues and students who have helped and encouraged me over the last ten years (especially those who got unjustly cut out of Acknowledgement, it’s all my fault!): without you I could not have finished this book.

Howdy, folks. I know there are a bunch of you who’ve been waiting for the John Shirley Interview #2 (possibly #2 and #3?). Sorry, it’s got delayed wee bit. Well, maybe I should change my name to Q De Lay.  But at least this time I’ve got a legitimate excuse. I have suffered a nerve paralysis and had to be on medication. It’s not life-threatening or anything, in truth it does not particularly affect my functions as a paid academic instructor and a middle-aged, pot-bellied media geek, but it certainly was shocking when I suddenly couldn’t taste hot kimchi fried rice (about 60% of my tongue feels like it’s coated with a thick layer of Vaseline), and an attempt to bite into a slice of toasted bread resulted in a disgusting sucking noise from the right side of my mouth.   So far my doctors and my wife (who’s a health care professional) are more worried about the cause of this condition than the condition itself.  What exactly happened?  The likeliest scenario is that this resulted from viral infection of the ear canal.  Seasonal allergies and sinus problems from the cold have been my chronic illnesses, especially in pollen-rich Northern California, so I suspect something seriously nasty had to come down one of these days from that.  But of course I am going to have everything checked, including the brainpan, naturally.

And then on Tuesday I had this incredible, blinding pain in the left side of my throat and ear. It turned out to be a tooth with hairline fractures (My thanks to Dr. Norman Hui, for fitting me in his busy schedule!).  Whoa, I was truly convinced that some exotic viruses have colonized all passages and cavities of my face and were slowly dissolving my face from inside out.  It just was a dang tooth going bad, and it had to coincide with the paralysis!  I dunno, is my body trying to tell me something?  Like, you are really going to drop dead unless you change your lifestyle, Fat Boy?!

(c) Anchor Bay/Starz

GYAAAH! ALL RIGHT ALREADY!

So anyway, there it is, my excuses for being delayed… but don’t you worry, the interview content is being transcribed literally as I am writing this blog entry.  Just be patient, friends, and check back in a few days.

I am a devoted collector of DVDs and used to compile a year’s end list for Djunaboard in Korean, strictly among the ones I have purchased or otherwise acquired in that particular year. Now that I have a blog space, I am going to do the same here.

Industry observers are putting out prognosis about the flattening if not actual decline of the DVD sales figure, but I saw more releases of desired titles in this year than any other year since perhaps 2004. I have been an early converter for the DVD format—I already had a small collection of DVDs and two DVD players by 1999—which is unusual for me, since it took me long time to convert to CD from vinyl and cassette, and I’ve bypassed laserdiscs altogether. I can truthfully say, though, that DVDs, unlike VHS (or Betamax) tapes, have greatly enhanced not only my viewing pleasure of seeing old classics, obscure cult films and nostalgic items from my childhood in the best condition imaginable, but also the surprise and joy of discovering new films, from all over the world (the pesky “region code” they’ve put into the disc was, of course, easily overcome).

Since 2000 or so the majority, I would say 70% or more, of the movies I watch every year, have been on the DVD format (I watch a lot of movies by the common standard, but not as much as the true movie nuts do: hey, I’ve got a demanding day job, okay? How much would you enjoy grading 800+ pages of student papers and navigating online grade submission programs right up to the Christmas day?). I do watch episodes of a TV series online, but unless I get over my gut feeling that online downloading of films—works of art, really, for the most part anyway—is making, perhaps even encouraging, the perception of them as disposable material, I won’t be joining the mp3 bandwagon. And as for the high-def format, since I now have a fairly good HD TV, and most of the DVD labels are releasing products transferred in high-def, I will eventually have to deal with this idiotic “format war” and buy either a HD DVD player, a Blu-Ray player or something that plays both. Right now there are so few desirable titles on either format, I am going to sit on it for a while. I think my decision will be swayed not by industrial bigwigs putting out spiffy hardware or high-def discs of Spider-Man 12 or Alien vs. Predator: Limerick Contest but by the choices of the DVD labels that release my kind of movies: Criterion, Synapse Films, Mondo Macabro and so on. As for Korea, I assume it will go Blu-Ray (Samsung wants Blu-Ray in Korea, then Blu-Ray it is) but the next-gen DVDs are probably not something Korean filmmakers are worried about just now, or even perhaps for next half-decade. They have other bigger concerns, like how to prevent the total collapse of the Korean movie industry.

All right, the preamble is getting too long. Let’s get to the list.  These are the titles that gave me the pleasure and frisson of discovering something totally new, re-appreciating what I had thought I knew but really didn’t, or simply confirming what I have always known to be true: they are the discs I will be spinning again and again and again, for fun and for edification, and for years to come. This is a subjective list and in no way reflects directly on the quality of the films represented therein, or strictly speaking, the quality of the packages and presentations. In other words, don’t argue with me why Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange is not in the list but Lindsay Anderson’s O Lucky Man! is. That doesn’t necessarily mean that I hold O Lucky Man! in higher esteem than the Kubrick film (As a matter of fact, I do, but that’s another issue altogether). And I have missed out, as usually is the case, quite a chunk of the 2007 releases, so to be fair, I’ve included about twenty 2006 DVDs I’ve bought this year in the candidate pool, even though in the end none of them actually made the list. And oh, for Korean speakers, this list is slightly different from the one I’d put up in Djunaboard. There will be no explanation about why this is so, except to say that the English-speaking and Korean-speaking parts of my brain don’t seem to agree with one another all the time.

So then, here goes, in the reverse countdown toward No. 1, although the rankings don’t strictly reflect my preferences.

10. The Host 2-Disc Collector’s Edition (Magnolia Pictures- Region 1)

The Host was a stunning surprise for me when it came out, a great monster movie set in a drably mundane setting– the banks and bridges of the Han River. Magnolia Pictures went out on their limb to give this scrappy, sly monster flick a first-class presentation, not only porting over all Region-3 supplements (all freshly subtitled in English) but commissioning an English (!) audio commentary with director Bong Joon-ho and critic Tony Rayns. I confess the choice of this title is a slight conflict of interest since I was sort of involved in the making of supplements, but hey, no can do about missing this one in the year’s end list.

9. Three by Teshigahara Hiroshi (Criterion- Region 1)

Ever since the old Image disc of Woman in the Dunes went OPP, I’ve waited patiently for the release of this most idiosyncratic and uncompromisingly modernist director’s oeuvre in Region 1. The wait has been handsomely repaid by Criterion, which presents the above-mentioned masterpiece but also Face of Another, a sarcastic fable on the problems of modern identity and Pitfall, a kind of cerebral ghost story with overtones of film noir, all in high-def remaster, along with a bevy of special features. Criterion’s package stresses the unique collaboration between director Teshigahara Hiroshi (who, by the way, is an iemoto of a nationally enfranchised ikebana, or flower arrangement, school in Japan: he most certainly did not have to go into filmmaking to make a living, or even succeed as an artist) and the great SF-fantasy writer Abe Kobo. Oh yeah, if you’ve ever wondered where that faceless-children-dumped-into-meat-grinders imagery in Pink Floyd the Wall came from, gotta check out Face of Another.

8. Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (Warner Brothers—Region 1)

Perhaps not the greatest but my personal favorite among the British “Angry Young Man” films of late ‘50s and early ‘60s, Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner is one of those films I watched as a kid, speaking very little English and understanding even less, catching a late night show in the AFKN (now AFN) channel (which by the way used to show uncensored prints of movies like Blood Beast and Blood and Black Lace, no kidding), and had to re-construct its real meaning, implied or explicit, inside my brain, over a long period of time.  This DVD release enabled me to watch the pic in the correct aspect ratio for the first time, and it gave me the joy of re-confirming as an adult the essence of my insights as a child, concerning politics and aesthetics of this courageous motion picture. Of course, now I have reached an age where I can read more in—perhaps even sympathize a bit with– Governor Tower’s grimace, but I am glad to report that the shock (of recognition?) that Colin’s defiant smile at the climax gave to my childhood self has not faded with the passage of time.

7. Tyrone Power Collection (20^th Century Fox—Region 1)

Darkly handsome Tyrone Power, one of those movie stars who seem to constantly outshine their leading ladies in their beauty, was perfectly capable of essaying a wide range of characters, some with more complexity and depth than was given credit. After being taken aback by the mind-boggling spiritual noir Nightmare Alley, I bought this box-set, more or less expecting a gaggle of high-quality old Hollywood swashbuckling fantasies. Instead, I and my wife sat slack-jawed watching at the panoramic display of incredible beauty (almost every scene looking like an oil painting in Blood and Sand), intelligent dialogue, superb characterizations and listening to, yes, majestic Alfred Newman scores. The box collects Blood and Sand, Captain from Castile, Prince of Foxes, Son of Fury and Black Rose, with classy cover illustrations and reproductions of lobby cards. Not really a set for those inclined for swashbuckling heroics, it is ripe for those ready to re-discover the diversity, meticulous craftsmanship and sheer intelligence of the old school Hollywood flicks.

6. The Unearthed Past Collection: The 1940s Korean Films Made During the Japanese Colonial Period. (Korean Film Archive/Taewon Entertainment—No Region)

This startling DVD box-set makes it available to the general public four films produced in 1940s Korea under the Japanese rule, thought to be completely lost, and only recently discovered in a Chinese local archive. At least two of these films—Volunteer Corps and The Joseon Straits –are explicitly designed to express support for Japan’s policies for war mobilization. Korean Film Archive has done a marvelous job presenting these haunting mementos of the past, even including in the package an exact replica of the original screenplay for The Vagabond Angel, written in Japanese. Also worth mentioning is that all films as well as the entirety of special features—introductions by the senior critic Kim Jong-won, a four-part documentary on 97-year-old Kim Hae-il, the oldest living Korean actor and the star of Vagabond Angel, and others—are subtitled in English (The quality of the subs vary, unfortunately). It is well-nigh miraculous that we are able to watch these films at all, let alone gathered together in such an authoritative and informative package: Korean Film Archive really deserves a round of applause for this release, from anyone remotely interested in Korean cinema or history.

5. O Lucky Man! (Warner Brothers—Region 1)

Ach, I can’t believe that I missed out on this insanely funny, marvelously perceptive, beautifully acted and altogether delightful second collaboration between Lindsay Anderson and Malcolm McDowell until this year! Yes yes I know, I have seen If… many times and my first impression of that film was, it’s a darn special movie but you know, this reminds me a lot of Japanese gakuen-mono comics (manga set in high school, some of them could get quite crazy and surreal—and no, I don’t mean this as a put-down), whereas there is simply no other movie like O Lucky Man!, at least none that I can recall. Warner’s DVD splits it into two discs, which I suppose will make some consumers unhappy, but I think it’s just fine.

4. Film Noir Collection Vol. 4 (Warner Brothers—Region 1)

This collection gets the place here in part as a representative of three other film noir box-sets Warner has released so far. Volume 4 ups the ante by including ten titles for a price not much higher than others in the series.  The titles I’ve watched so far have ranged from simply great movies showcasing sheer brilliance of filmmaking and script-writing (They Live By Night), to eye-opening fresh finds (for me, at least– Mystery Street, The Big Steal, Act of Violence) and to solid pieces of genre entertainment (Illegal, Where Danger Lives), helmed by the likes of Fred Zinnemann, Nicholas Ray, Andre de Toth, Don Siegel, John Sturges and Anthony Mann and starring Ricardo Montalban, Robert Ryan, Edward G. Robinson, Sterling Hayden, Jayne Mansfield, Jane Greer, Farley Granger, Janet Leigh and, who else, Robert Mitchum.

3. Fires on the Plain (Criterion—Region 1)

While Clint Eastwood’s Letters from Iwo Jima is a monumental effort by an American filmmaker to understand one of his country’s most traumatic moments from the point of view of its enemy—something no other American filmmaker has ever achieved, not John Ford, not Martin Scorsese, no one—, as Professor John Dower of MIT has pointed out, the story of Japan’s failed attempt to hold onto sanity and dignity as their empire unraveled in late 1940s has already been told by Japanese filmmakers themselves. The greatest of these Japanese films on the horrors of the Pacific War is Ichikawa Kon’s Fires on the Plain, which is not only a harrowing, unflinching exploration of the degradation and dehumanization visited by a war, but also a magnificent artistic achievement, finding poetry, beauty or even humor in the unlikeliest of circumstances. Its unabashed humanism is deeply moving, while thoroughly rejecting sentimentalism and conceding absolutely nothing to Japan’s postwar complacency. A masterpiece by a true maestro, who has enjoyed artistic success in every conceivable genre under the sun, still active at the age 92.

2. Fox Horror Classics (20th Century Fox—Region 1)

Before I bought this DVD, I had not seen a single film directed by John Brahm, and had had no inkling of who Laird Cregar might be. Only after I saw The Lodger and Hangover Square did I recognize him as the frightening corrupt cop, immense as a mountain but with a strangely melodious, sonorous voice, from the Victor Mature vehicle I Wake Up Screaming. While The Lodger is a beautiful piece of classic mystery, Hangover Square completely blew me (and my wife) away. After watching it I could barely suppress my urge to kick myself in the butt (hmm, not really a practical thing to do, without the knowledge of some special yoga techniques) for having pretended to be a film buff—and yet I didn’t even know this film existed! I can only wish I could experience more than one discovery as surprising and thrilling as this box-set in the next year.

1. Blade Runner 5-Disc Ultimate Edition (Warner Brothers—Region 1)

Uheehee, it’s our cat, with the toy Spinner.

Oh come on, don’t say you are disappointed. You knew it had to be Blade Runner. For the record, I believe (like Roger Ebert used to say, I don’t know what his most current views are on this) the “goofy” narration does not hurt the movie that much, and I also believe making you-know-who into a replicant weakens the movie.  By saying this, yes, I am disagreeing with Sir Ridley, I know I know, he made the movie, but I still disagree. Blade Runner is a movie about a human being faced with the ironic truth that replicants—artificial human beings, for all intents and purposes—are more of human beings than he is, not about a replicant re-discovering his “true nature.” Sorry girls and boys, don’t try to talk me out of this: I have had 25 years to brood on this question. I can’t stop talking about Blade Runner once I get started, so I will just finish off here with a finale. The great science fiction film, that has done so much to literally shape our view of the future, and of course our “real,” lived present, receives the special treatment that it damn-straight deserves from Warner Brothers. Just get a-hold of the damn thing, and if you don’t “get” it in the first viewing, don’t worry. You will come back to it over and over.

Thanks for reading, I will be back with more DVD reviews in 2008: you can expect dinosaurs, Frankenstein’s monsters, overgrown anthropophagic rodents, you know the drill.

As anyone with a modicum of knowledge about the history of science fiction should know, John Shirley is one of the founders of “cyberpunk” SF. But during his 35-year career, he has reached out to make his mark in a wide variety of genres and literary formats. Aside from the paradigm-shifting short-story collection Heatseeker, a freaking mind-altering cosmic extravaganza that is Splendid Chaos, the frighteningly prophetic Eclipse trilogy and numerous other SF novels, Mr. Shirley has written poetry, urban crime thrillers, Westerns, Lovecraftian horrors, and novelizations based on such cinematic /comic book characters and creatures as John Constantine, Alien, Batman and Predator. He has written lyrics for the band Blue Öyster Cult and performed in punk bands including Panther Moderns. Cinema mavens not quite so well-versed in SF literature might recognize him as the hand behind adapting James O’Barr’s comic book The Crow to the big screen, along with David J. Schow. (Mr. Shirley’s distinctively spiritual take on the villainy as lack of enlightenment and empathy may be gleaned in the way climactic death of Top Dollar is presented) You girls and boys should check out a webpage devoted to him, www.darkecho.com/JohnShirley, where you can download his vocal performances, connect to his regular rantings in the text-jammed blog (it’s simply wall-to-wall, column-to-column writing) and join his other fans (Speaking of fans, make sure you read Bruce Sterling’s note on a “Typical John Shirley Fan” in the “Oddities” section of the webpage) in the message board. 

While much of his SF stories and novels are essential readings for anyone seriously interested in the genre, it’s his “dark fantasy” novels, In Darkness Waiting, Wetbones, Demons and The View from Hell, that have the power to instantly make a palpitating fanboy nut out of me. Truly, you haven’t read anything in modern horror until you have splattered your living brain all over a copy of Black Butterflies, a collection of his most perception-warping and mind-shredding tales of terror. His most recent short story collection is Living Shadows, an eclectic assembly of the works not overtly identifiable as SF or horror, gathered together from the early and late stages of his adventurous literary career. It’s a damn fine introduction to the amazing versatility and prowess of John Shirley as a writer. 

Due to a strange twist of fate—eh, but actually, mostly, like 90%, due to John’s generosity, and maybe 10% to my own effort, which involved hauling my fat ass all the way across San Francisco on foot, to attend a 1999 reading of his short story collection Really Really Really Really Weird Stories (that’s not two, not three, but four “Really”s, girls and boys!) at a Haight Street bookstore—I have somehow become a friend of John’s, meeting his wonderful family, joining him in his frequent trips to San Francisco to catch new SF/fantasy/horror films, and even making cameo appearances in a number of his novels, for instance, as a scientist-turned-food and eventually a source of spare parts for the nanobot creatures in Crawlers, or as Commander of a space cruiser—yay!—belonging to the Chinese-Asian Nation Cooperative, only to end up as—sigh…–an incubating host for one of the Alien larvae… you get the picture. At least I do get to cleave a racist goon in half with an axe in another novel before being blasted apart by a machine gun: well, I wouldn’t say I’m not evolving as a character. 

In person, John Shirley can be pretty intimidating-looking: very pale, with blonde moustache, occasionally dressed in all-black Western cowboy getup that flatters his big frame, you can easily imagine him cast as a charismatic bad guy in a neo-noir film set in San Francisco, cracking a hapless stool pigeon’s arm, say, in a smoky bar, or nonchalantly quoting poetry while clinched in a Mexican stand-off. His voice is surprisingly musical and his eyes go a-twinkle above a boyish grin, when he scores a point against me during our banters. He is a straightforward man, truthful to his emotion, and genuinely spiritual, maintaining a fascinating balance between a consulting detective’s skepticism and faculties of ratiocination on the one hand and a monastic’s open-minded quest for the knowledge and wisdom that can unlock the mysteries of our existence on the other. Mr. Shirley is not a man without his personal demons, but he is also the kind of tough guy who would engage them in a bare-knuckled hand-to-hand combat. I can imagine him keeping one in a wrestler’s head-rock until it coughs up some wisdom, some clue to the enlightenment, a bit like Jacob grappling with an Angel. Trust him to show us things about ourselves that we would rather not admit, honestly and sometimes painfully, but always with fairness and compassion. 

For the inaugural segment for (what I hope to be) my informal interview series with artists, thinkers and all-round interesting people I’ve met (and hope to meet someday), I could think of no one more appropriate than Mr. Shirley, surely one of the most innovative, challenging and talented writers I have known throughout my life, personally or otherwise. So, without further ado, here is John Shirley in his own words, discussing his current projects, literary preferences and other issues. 

* The following interview conducted on November 12, 2007. All contents therein are copyrighted to Kyu Hyun Kim. No citation without proper acknowledgement of the interviewer is allowed.

Q: How would you characterize the way you write these days?

JS: “Retro-writing,” I’m afraid. I am back to working on a new cyberpunk novel, which I haven’t worked on for twenty years. A small press, Elder Signs, asked me to complete it. Currently I think there is a resurgence of interest in Cyberpunk, so these two things combined led to this novel, which is called Black Glass. It’s based on a movie I and William Gibson were originally working on. At about that time we were also trying to adapt New Rose Hotel, from Gibson’s story.

Q: Have you seen [Abel Ferrara’s] movie version of New Rose Hotel?

JS: No. It had nothing to do with our script. I considered the idea of checking it out in a theater but I ended up not seeing it. We wrote a good script but they never used it.

Q: When did Black Glass start off as a project?

JS: Hmm… late ‘80s… ’89 or ’90. Sometime around there… I wrote a screenplay based on an idea I had, and some input from him, called Macrochip, and I reworked it on my own, without Gibson’s involvement, into a novel. I asked him to revise the novel but he didn’t have time so he released the project to me. Anyway, Gibson’s contribution was to the main premise of the story, which has to do with “mind-cloning,” making a semblance of yourself that talks to people online, on video and so on and people really have no idea whether they are talking to you or your recreated semblances, which say what you’d say. They get periodically updated so that they can catch up with your progress in life, so they are meant to be exact copies of your present mind at work, in large part anyway. And then somebody finds a way to consolidate five of these semblances into one being, to take over and run a huge corporation. They are copied from five board members of the company but what happens is the semblances end up becoming an amalgamation of their worst characteristics, a single, independent malevolent entity. They are opposed by an ex-cop who went to prison trying to protect his brother; his brother’s a “V-Rat,” addicted to a virtual reality equivalent of crack cocaine, and he’s a washed-up grungy rock star, so there’s an echo of my Eclipse trilogy there as well. As you can see, this novel overlaps with my earlier works more than anything I have done in recent years. And of course I had to do a lot of updating, making it in tune with contemporary technology and so on, but I don’t carry it out as far as, say, Cory Doctorow or Richard Morgan, the contemporary cyberpunk writers for whom being up-to-date is like something they do faithfully every day the way a nun goes to Mass. I do keep my work up-to-date but not so far as to use the contemporary jargon from a computer science journal or Wired magazine. ‘Cause if I do that I will just sound like an old guy imitating younger guys. I am bringing the old and the new together and trying to write a noir tale of the future.

Q: Where does the title Black Glass come from?

JS: It’s the name of a nightclub in the novel.

Q: Anything else you are doing?

JS: I am scheduled to complete a novel for Simon & Schuster called Bleak History. It’s about a guy named Bleak but of course it’s also about the bleakness of history, too. Although it’s not yet finished, it has already been optioned by a movie production company.

Q: But it’s not an alternative history novel?

JS: Hmm, not really. It’s about a secret history. I don’t think I am the first one to use this for a fantasy novel but it uses Isaac Newton’s interest in the occult as a background. It’s about a machine that prevents magic from taking place on Earth, and what happens when that machine is turned off.

Q: Sounds wickedly fascinating! So the Enlightenment thinkers have figured out ways to overcome magic, literally. What do you think about your current status as one of the founders of cyberpunk fiction, I mean that’s how you are known in Korea…

JS: Do they have my books in print, in Korean?

Q: Umm… ;;; dammit, I cannot access my brain implant for some reason… it always happens when I try to connect to Korea. (Laughter) But anyway, what I meant to ask was, you have evolved since your cyberpunk days, even during the eight years I have known you personally you have tackled a lot of different genres, different formats and so on… do you see more of a continuum between what you were as a writer in ‘80s and what you are today, or more of a disjuncture? Do you feel you have evolved out of the cyberpunk writer you were, in a sense?

JS: I feel my writing changed a lot. It’s become more nuanced and mature but there is a negative side-effect to maturing. You are not likely to take as many chances. Certain ideas look to you now as so improbable you don’t write about them anymore, whereas when I was young, I really didn’t care about how probable an idea was. If it was cool enough, and as long as it gave rise to a surreal image I liked, you know, I just wrote about it. I had some difficulty getting published because of that but on the other hand these things eventually found their way to print and people loved the freeness of those works. So I try to keep freshness to my imagination and try to make things reasonably believable as well. Unfortunately the tendency as you get older is you get more doubtful about what is possible. And that constriction finds its way into my writing. I struggle against it constantly. I mean, I am not that old but I am old enough to feel the conflict in me.

Q: What’s the good side of having experienced all that you have experienced, having matured as a writer? Is there a kind of wisdom that comes from having been a writer for so long?

JS: Sure, of course. I understand human nature better and can evoke it better

Q: So [maturity is displayed] mostly through characterizations.

JS: I also have more control over my writing. And I have learned more about the nature of the world– politics, history, and so on. I am not as reckless in my writing. Long time ago I’ve written a novel– I’d love to revise the book–titled Three-Ring Psychus, originally called Up!, where gravity gets selectively cancelled on the Earth. But the main focus at that time, for me, was just portraying the image of people and civilization literally floating up in the air. Like something Salvador Dali would have painted. At this point in my life, I would probably be reluctant to write such a thing. But I miss writing recklessly, so sometimes I write stories like “Miss Singularity” [in Living Shadows], to consciously let go of the restraints, let imagination run like a wild horse and create the world where almost anything can happen, as I used to. 

Q: I’ve read a lot of your stories, and some in which the images, say, abstract paintings, Cubist and whatnot, have lives of their own, they are almost like living creatures, speaking directly and immediately to our brains without being mediated through a rational process…

JS: Like A Splendid Chaos?

Q: Ah no, I’m thinking more of your short stories. These images elicit responses from us, like “What the hell is that?” or “Wow it’s really beautiful but also somehow disturbing.” And you just spin whole stories out of these images and our non-articulated reactions to them, which I find really interesting.

JS: Yeah, if you look at surrealist paintings they seem to contain whole other worlds within them, you know. A Max Ernst painting, it seems to operate with its own laws, and artists like Tanguy, they did paintings, landscapes with their own internal logic. I try to create settings in some of my stories in which people’s inner landscapes can be totally fantastic, but from their points of view, they are internally logical.

Q: You think maybe you are like Edgar Allan Poe in that respect?

JS: Well, Poe was into taking an idea and extrapolating from it…

Q: But he was also graphic and immediate and you can relate to his writings on a visceral level, too.

JS: You could say that. I’ve been an avid reader of Poe since I was very young… I did collaborate with him, you know, in “Blind Eye,” [Expanded from the actual unpublished fragment written by Poe, and originally published in Poe’s Lighthouse] even though he died on me, like a hundred years ago. (Laughter)

Q: Ah, that’s right! (Laughter) OK, can you tell me anything that pops into your mind when you hear the following names: Edgar Allan Poe, Ambrose Bierce and H. P. Lovecraft?

JS: What about them?

Q: Oh, you can just tell me what you think about them.

JS: Well, Poe is a master of atmosphere, and when he was great he was great, you know. He experimented a lot, too, and I respect that. Lovecraft is more derivative of Poe than many people realize. I think Lovecraft’s prose is heavily influenced by Poe’s poetry, but having said that, obviously he was a very imaginative writer, and people have been stealing from him for many, many years. He was a bigot but I read from biographies that he did get over some of these negative racist views, at least to a degree, just before he died. I recently wrote a story for High Seas Cthulhu, a kind of effort to lay the ghost of Lovecraft’s bigotry, in which African former slaves use Dagon to wreak vengeance on white slave-masters. As for Ambrose Bierce, his sense of irony probably affected me, and of course, everyone has read “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.” That’s really a story that haunted me for all my life, because it lays down this situation of you surviving a horrible situation only to find out that you haven’t really survived it at all. We can only temporarily keep mortality at bay, in other words. Also to me, the real horrors of the world are dealing with human monsters, and I believe Bierce had the same attitude.

(To be continued in Part 2)