For all Mankind 5.01
Mar. 29th, 2026 01:25 pm( Spoilers finally found out what happened to Oleg from The Americans )
K-pop group STAYC just released the longest K-pop album I've ever heard: 17 songs, 50 minutes. It's called Stay Alive. Based on the title, I thought it was a live album, which intrigued me: I'd never heard a K-pop live album, because the K-pop industry is run by people like A., who want the live version to sound exactly like the recorded version, so there's no point in releasing a live album.
Anyway, I started listening to Stay Alive. The first song makes it clear that it's not a live album. By the time I got to the third song, I noticed that all the songs were being sung in Japanese. So I checked track list: It's Japanese versions of all of their songs. Then it hit me: I checked the dates, and November of this year will be sixth anniversary of STAYC's debut. Depending on how far in advance of their debut they signed their contracts, they could already be in the sixth year of their seven-year contract. And suddenly the whole album makes sense: They're showing their label that they can sing all of their songs in Japanese, in hopes that the label will start promoting them in Japan and also renew their contract, so that the group can "stay alive"! (I hope it works — I really like STAYC, and I'd hate to see them disband.)
I talk with my hands. This amuses A. to no end: She's the one who's part-Italian and yet I'm the one who can't talk without gesticulating. Whether I'm talking about sending an email (fingers typing on a keyboard), sending a fax (hands palm-down, fingertips guiding the paper into the machine), or chopping vegetables (left hand moving the knife up and down, right hand advancing the the vegetable toward it), I don't even think about it, but my hands accompany my words.
Yesterday, we got some small cucumbers and I was talking about using some of them to make oi muchim (a Korean cucumber salad with thinly sliced cucumbers in a gochugaru-seasoned dressing). I was talking about slicing the cucumbers, and she looked at my hands and asked "What's that?" I looked at my hands and saw that my right hand was flat, palm-up, while my left hand was palm-down, in a claw grip, moving back and forth over my right hand. And then it hit me: When I make oi muchim, I don't slice the cucumbers with a knife. I slice them with a mandoline. And without even thinking about it, my hands were doing to the correct motion for the action I would be doing.
I don't even notice that I'm doing this until she points it out, so I don't know if I could stop it if I tried.