We are all familiar with the cliché of the struggling artist: the cellist who sacrificed using electricity for months to save up to study in Italy, the singer whose only family was the church, and the pianist that found healing in the moments where their fingers danced across the black and ivory keys. Their music is profound. The depth of their sound comes from the depths of their life experience and they posses that magical something that transforms notes on the page to a sound that captures the essence of what it means to be human.

While there are tremendous artists who are borne of such circumstances, many come from much more affluent roots and whose struggles to survive and thrive were limited in respect to the clichés of a “true” musician’s origin. Many of these students are quite good, technically proficient and go on to have successful careers, yet what is it that separates an artist from simply being good to having the ability to touch each and every member of the audience? My thoughts? It is being uncomfortable.

This idea was brought up to me by a friend earlier this week. I was complaining about having to sing a piece in Aria Preparation that I did not feel was right for me vocally and which I had only been assigned a few weeks prior. I was preemptively embarrassed to sing in front of a room of graduate students and a professor that I am slightly obsessed with and am convinced is a genius, and was ruminating on how with more time, a different aria or a different day I would sound 10x better than I knew I was going to in a few short minutes.

Her response? She began talking about how she had started running over break. Her sister had suggested that they go for a 5 mile run and my friend immediately knew that wasn’t going to happen so they settle on going on a quick 2 mile run. Halfway through the run she reached a state of perpetual discomfort – it was not pleasant, it was not painful but rather a general sense of awareness that she was asking her body to do more than it was prepared to do, although it was fully capable of performing the task. Following the run her sister informed her that she had been tricked – they had run the 5 miles.

So how does this all tie in? Being uncomfortable pushes you to accomplish the things which you are physically capable of doing but mentally scared to try. Whether it is running five miles or singing a new aria this state of discomfort is not only desirable but required for growth at a rate that turns a runner or an artist from good to great. Being uncomfortable is not the same thing as being in pain – pain means you are not ready – but being uncomfortable is the key to growing faster and going farther.

“What was the first anime you ever watched?”
“Dragonball.”
“Sailor Moon.”
“Pokemon.”

These are but typical answers for a dull question. I don’t think I’ve ever sat down and watched every single episode of these shows or read every single chapter of the manga the shows were based on. I specifically remember watching Dragonball quite sporadically, to the point where the narrative never made sense to me.

For nostalgic purposes, I recently picked up a copy of the first volume of the Dragonball manga series by Akira Toriyama. But like I said, I never read the entirety of the series, and ironically, I never even read the first chapters before. So this nostalgia was very narrow, for I was nostalgic for the aesthetic and characters rather than the narrative itself. Anyways, here is a notable scene I encountered.

In the manga, there is a moment where, after having slept in the same vehicle/mobile home as Bulma, Goku gets up and finds a sleeping Bulma. He then finds her “pillow,” pats the area a couple of times, and then takes off her panties to discover she has no balls at which point his panicked scream wakes up Bulma. He screams at her, “You have no balls!” She thinks he is talking about the Dragonballs and is completely oblivious to what had transpired during her slumber.

“What? Is this legit?”
Turns out it was, apparently I was completely oblivious to the instances of panty dropping and flashing in the anime.

But now, before we get all hot and bothered and classify Dragonball as some borderline soft porn, lets consider the context of this scene. The scene is actually quite funny if you think about it. You just have to consider the context; Goku has never seen a girl up until he met Bulma. He thought everyone had tails until he met her. This is innocent, nothing sensual about it.

Which brings me to a work that predates these famed shows and manga – Lupin III. This manga is downright raunchy at times. Lupin is not just a thief, but he is also sex hungry. Leaping out of his clothes and jumping on top of women (who are virtually indistinguishable from one another, all of them sporting Barbie-like proportions) who are lying naked on beds in some bedroom of the building he is robbing. The manga also doesn’t shy away from full nudity, however, an interesting stylistic choice is that Monkey Punch, or Kazuhiko Katō, the creator of the series, draws Lupin’s penis as the gender sign for males. Does this objectify men? Stating that the entirety of the gender can be reduced to the penis? I guess, very slightly. But not nearly as much as the naked women who seem to appear every other chapter in this manga. Also, I mean, the gender sign penis is kind of funny. But anyways, maybe you’d think the manga would stop at nudity. No. No it doesn’t. There are explicit lines about climaxing and pleasure and graphic Lupin on objectified woman action.

Now, why am I reading this? I seem to be saying that it’s horrible, yet here I am, reading it, again. One reason is because I love the art style. It’s incredibly sketchy, and it feels borderline unfinished at times. However, the quick lines and overtly cartoonish postures and expressions add a kinetic energy to the art that I find rare in overly polished comic book art. This is reflective of crudeness of the content at times. Which works. For a long time, Monkey Punch had failed to really develop the characters beyond mere cartoonish caricatures. I mean, the manga volume I’m pulling these scenes from, was published in 2004. It isn’t very progressive, especially considering the second reason as to why I’m reading the manga.

Perhaps the most famous version of Lupin III is his depiction in the film, The Castle of Cagliostro, by the now retired Hayao Miyazaki. This was Miyazaki’s debut and it improved upon the source material in so many ways. First of all, the gender sign penis was gone, the vast quantities of sexual drive was gone, Lupin was now far more chivalrous, and the focus of the film in general was shifted towards a heavy concentration in the adventure aspect of the series. First and foremost, Lupin III is about a thief with a blend of Indiana Jones-esque adventure and James Bond debonair. Miyazaki nails this. Honestly, there was nobody better suited to direct Lupin in the proper manner than Studio Ghibli guru – for he excels at creating films primarily for children.

But although he got rid of most of the adult content, he still retained the cartoonish essence at the heart of the original. This feels like the opposite of the direction many comic book movies are taking nowadays. Miyazaki embraces the silliness and is not concerned in slathering on a layer of drab malaise and deep brooding to characters who were never like that in the first place. Perhaps all directors should see this movie so they may learn about how important it is to retain the essence.

I’ll end with a clip from the film that showcases this arguably inexplicable feel of joy that is so subtly captured in this film. Spielberg himself described this scene as arguably the best car chase scene of all time, simply because you can see how much the characters are enjoying the chase. It also helps that they are in an adorable little Fiat 500.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxbum3is6G0

Blade Runner is a film that has stuck with me since I first saw it. It’s been my go to recommendation for anybody who claimed Ridley Scott was a bad director and a constant recommendation for anyone who was looking for a great sci-fi flick. In many ways, this is true science fiction rather than say, Star Wars, which I classify to be more fantasy in space than anything close to science fiction. As snobbish as it may sound, I do believe a film must hold some intellectual weight, explored via scientific context, to be considered as science fiction. What I mean is that there needs to be an intellectually inseparable bond between the context of the film and its preoccupations. Star Wars doesn’t need to be set in space. Like really, it doesn’t. I’m glad it is. But please, it’s no Blade Runner.

Recently, I was thinking about Blade Runner, and in particular, the last speech that Roy says before he dies atop a rooftop, “All those moments will be lost, in time, like tears in the rain.” He is talking about various things he had seen, things that other people will spend their entire lives not seeing. The film as a whole is incredibly preoccupied with eyes, and seeing and revealing, but where all this imagery eventually points to is fairly indefinite to me – quite possibly because of how untrustworthy perception via vision seems to be, or at least, because of how the film suggests optical skepticism. What does it matter in the end? All these replicants look like people, or, rephrased, all these people could be replicants. Blade Runners use eye monitoring devises while questioning individuals to see whether or not they are replicants, but rather than the visual aspect, the true key in the test is the way in which the subject responds to the various questions. For example, whether or not they are given a default memory programmed into many replicants.

Which begs the question – we all see what we see, but the question is what do we make of our basic stimulations? This question extends to: how do we identify ourselves? Because amidst all these stimulations, whether they are tactile or illusory, is the formation of who we are. When one of these forms of stimulation becomes a point of skepticism or doubt, our identity is at risk of becoming unstable. We become uncertain of whom we are. But, is there a way to deal with this potential threat? For it is evident, in the modern age, the amount of stimulation is becoming more potent and more frequent. Then does the risk, perhaps, increase as well? If so, how do we deal with this?

I’m not sure if there is answer for that. But I keep coming back to that speech when I look for an answer. I think perhaps the lack of an answer is the answer. Who we are, will be lost. All those stimulations, all those moments of self-identification, upon our death, they are gone. But the way they are lost is in the endless rain, or the endless stimulations of our world, hiding those of the individual.

Recently, I had been working on an essay covering the story of my grandpa, and in relation, my relationship with him. We were both children at one point, but to consider, at one point in our lives, there was a time where his formative days were in the past while mine were still to come. How foundational are these moments of confluence between individuals separated by generations. When I ask myself, “What does my grandpa mean to me.” I can only say, although he is alive, he is first and foremost, a memory. A representation of rich 20th century Korean culture that I was never a part of, nor stuck around in Korea long enough to allow it to affect me.

I interviewed him recently, asking about the Korean War, his childhood, his time spent working in a post-war nation. He’d forgotten almost all the specifics. His moments are being lost, one by one. We talked to each other through Skype, a process he hardly understands. It’s jarring, talking to him on a screen, to realize that the man who played with me during my infancy is now half a world away and older than ever before.

I can’t help but feel, that once I answer the question – who is he to me – I will be able to find out who I am a little bit more. A form of stimulation I forgot to mention earlier, the interaction between people. Maybe the answer lies there.

Today, I had the opportunity to read my writing out loud in public for, well, kind of the first time. It seems strange that I’d never done it, aside from reading excerpts to my creative writing classes pre-workshop or reading things to my family or whatever. But I’ve never participated in a poetry slam, never given a speech, really.

I was nominated by my creative writing professor to share my writing at this yearly event where, for four nights, there are casual readings in the Shapiro Undergraduate Library. It was an honor to get nominated by him, although I have no idea how much that counts; did he nominate me over other people in the class, or did he nominate the whole class and wait to see who accepted? In any event, there’s only one other person in the class who I know was also sharing, and even if she was just the only other person who accepted, it felt nice to get the recognition.

I showed up today at 7:00, ready to share an essay I’d published last summer on College Magazine about secondhand grief. As always, I was a little anxious the whole day about the experience. I’ve always had stage fright, which reached its height in high school when I went onstage to play piano at recitals with 50 or so people. Though it wasn’t as big of a deal this time, I was still a little nervous.

It turned out the ‘Café Shapiro’ event was even more casual than I’d realized. Outside of a couple fellow readers’ friends, one reader’s parents, and a couple random people glancing over, there was basically nobody listening to the readings. I didn’t really have a problem with that because it meant less stress for me, but I did wish I’d invited a few people just because it felt so empty. I almost felt bad for the librarians who’d organized it.

So as I went up there and started reading (I was the ninth and last reader), I was only a little nervous. There was a ton of ambient library noise as people walked by constantly, which made it feel less scary. My essay was short and thematically in line with many of the other readings. And, to be honest, almost nobody was listening.

As I was sitting there waiting to go up before I actually read, though, I thought of something that calmed my remaining nerves. I thought about how, in the future, once I’m a famous published author (something I’ve always been unusually confident about), I’ll be doing readings all the time. It’ll be different from this; there’ll be dozens, maybe hundreds, hey, maybe thousands of people. And once I’m there, I realized, I’ll look back on this day, this moment standing in a library near a busy café with a couple random college students glancing over every once in a while and only a few people really listening and obligatorily clapping.

Your college years are the years when you feel like you’re being forced to grow up, like childhood is terrifyingly far in the rearview mirror even though it feels like you are still an ignorant child. It’s helpful sometimes to realize that if you’re having a rough time in college, this doesn’t have to be the stereotypical ‘best years of your life.’ This isn’t the destination. As my smart friend Caroline said, we’re “still in peak transitional years, even if it doesn’t always feel like it.” Sometimes it’s comforting to remember that. Me, standing in the café and reading to an audience of five—this isn’t the end. This is only the beginning.