In Seoul's Itaewon District, Colin talks with Stephen Revere, CEO of 10 Media (producer of Chip's Maps ), co-founder and managing editor of 10 Magazine , author of two Survival Korean books, and for three years the teacher on Arirang television's Let's Speak Korean . The Seoul in which he arrived, and which amazed him, in 1995; how quickly he decided to master the Korean language, and the dearth of tools he had back in those days, such as the Korean Through English books; where the Defense Langu...
Dec 09, 2014•58 min
In Seoul's Insadong district, Colin talks with Michael Breen, author of The Koreans: Who They Are, What They Want, Where Their Future Lies as well as other books on Kim Jong-il and Sun Myung Moon as well as founder and CEO of Insight Communications Consultants . They discuss what you can infer about Korean society from the way Koreans drive versus now versus when he first wrote wrote The Koreans ; the difference in the role of the law where it has traditionally oppressed people, as in Korea, and...
Dec 06, 2014•1 hr 26 min
In Seoul's Arirang building, Colin talks with Adrien Lee, host of Arirang TV's Showbiz Korea and Arirang radio's Catch the Wave . They discuss how he first reacted to the sight of all the branches of Paris Baguette, Tout les Jours, and Ciel de France in Seoul; how he got from industrial engineering studies in France to television and radio in Korea (and why he isn't looking back); what Korean culture he could get exposure to growing up in France; how few complications his background introduced i...
Dec 03, 2014•1 hr 2 min
On a rainy day in Seoul's Garosu-gil, Colin talks with Marc Raymond , film scholar, teacher at Kangwoon University, and author of Hollywood's New Yorker: The Making of Martin Scorsese. They discuss how much you can learn about Korean life from Hong Sangsoo movies; what Hong has in common with Martin Scorsese; how the two directors relate differently to their "outsider" status; the international code Hong seems to have cracked, and why the rest of Korea covets that; Hong's probable place in the C...
Nov 30, 2014•1 hr 3 min
In Seoul's Gangnam district, Colin speaks with Mipa Lee, proprietor of Itaewon's vegan cafe and bake shop and café PLANT and author of the blog Alien's Day Out . They discuss the unlikely country in which she became vegan; her journey from Korea to England to Africa to the United States and back to Korea again; her constant expectation of a move that had kept her from putting down roots or buying furniture; how her parents became early international Koreans; how her boarding school gave her blog...
Nov 27, 2014•1 hr 3 min
In Seoul's Hongdae district, Colin talks with Mark Russell , author of the books Pop Goes Korea , K-Pop Now! , and the coming novel Young-hee and the Pullocho . They discuss what unites Korean pop culture other than having made by Korean people; the tendency toward mixture that characterizes so much of the country culture; his early experience with Korean culture practicing tae kwon do in high school; where the "if this doesn't work, I can go teach English in Korea" took him, how he envisioned t...
Nov 23, 2014•1 hr 2 min
In Seoul's Gangnam district, Colin talks with Laurence Pritchard, writer, teacher, and enthusiast of Korean literature. They discuss the Korean phenomenon of the "English gentleman" and the presence of English culture in the country; the idea that westerners "are all incredibly promiscous"; the expectations of an Englishman; the constant hurry of Seoul; his experience in France versus the Korean France of the imagination; the importance of swirling with the biggest wine glass you can get; the "d...
Nov 19, 2014•1 hr 15 min
In Seoul's Garosu-gil, Colin Marshall talks with Korean music industry expert Bernie Cho, president of DFSB Kollective, a creative agency that provides digital media, marketing, and distribution services to Korean pop music artists. They discuss why the world now knows what K-pop is; how Korean youth culture, pop culture, and digit culture have become one in the same; Psy as outlier and representative of K-pop, "the bad boy who became the golden boy," who put a dent in the industry's pursuit of ...
Nov 16, 2014•1 hr 1 min
In Seoul's Mapo-gu, Colin talks with Hyunwoo Sun , founder of the Korean language-learning site Talk to Me in Korean . They discuss whether a space alien with no knowledge of any human language should first study English or Korean; how he got into teaching his native language; how the strangeness of seeing foreigners speaking Korean has disappeared for him; the state of Korean English education, and how he managed not to get permanently put off language study by it despite the fact that "everyth...
Nov 11, 2014•1 hr 2 min
Beneath the rock of Michael Heizer's Levitated Mass at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Colin Marshall talks with documentarian Doug Pray , maker of such films as Hype! on the Seattle 1990s grunge scene, Infamy on graffiti artists, Surfwise on Doc Paskowitz's traveling family, and Art & Copy on the advertising industry. His new Levitated Mass examines the complicated movement of the rock all the way from Riverside to its site at LACMA. They discuss how often he's stood under the rock si...
Nov 07, 2014•1 hr 2 min
In a pub in Toronto's Swansea, Colin Marshall talks with novelist Craig Davidson, author of Rust and Bone , The Fighter , Sarah Court , and most recently The Fighter , all under his on name, and author of horror fiction under the pseudonyms Nick Cutter and Patrick Lestewka. They discuss Toronto's distance, geographical and in sensibility, from Niagara falls; his potential attraction to desperate settings; modern man's longing for "the test" to be put to; how he came to write books containing no ...
Nov 05, 2014•1 hr 2 min
At the University of Toronto, Colin Marshall talks with Mark Kingwell, professor of philosophy and author of such books as A Civil Tongue: Justice, Dialogue, and the Politics of Pluralism , The World We Want: Restoring Citizenship in a Fractured Age , Concrete Reveries: Consciousness and the City, and most recently the collection Unruly Voices: Essays on Democracy, Civility and the Human Imagination . They discuss how the "ongoing argument" that is Canada manifests in Toronto; the University of ...
Nov 01, 2014•1 hr 4 min
In Toronto's Christie Pits neighborhood, Colin Marshall talks with Globe and Mail architecture critic Alex Bozikovic , who also writes for such publications as Dwell , Wallpaper , Toronto Life , and Spacing . They discuss whether Honest Ed's has any architectural significance to go with its social significance, and what its imminent disappearance says about the urbanism of Toronto's future; its Los Angeles-like interest in becoming a "more walkable, more urban, more interesting" city; how it nev...
Oct 29, 2014•1 hr 3 min
Out with the raccoons on the closed second-floor balcony of a Toronto bar, Colin Marshall talks with Keith McNally , the podcast auteur behind the shows XO , I Have a Ham Radio , and The Vinyl Countdown . They discuss the function and imminent disappearance of Honest Ed's; podcasting as a 21st-century means of hanging out with "friends" and having man-to-man conversations; why he felt such elation at leaving New York, and how a combination of Keith and the Girl and Ayn Rand drove him there in th...
Oct 26, 2014•1 hr 8 min
In Toronto's Junction, Colin Marshall talks to Amy Lavender Harris, geographer at York University and author of Imagining Toronto , a study of the city as depicted in its literature. They discuss the psychedelically-illustrated, Toronto-centric poetry of Dennis Lee with which so many Torontonians grew up; how it took her thirty years from her Lee-reading days to come to understand the full scope of Toronto literature; In the Skin of a Lion , Michael Ondaatje's much-named, little-read novel of ci...
Oct 23, 2014•1 hr 3 min
Near the University of Toronto, Colin Marshall talks to Alana Wilcox, Editorial Director of Coach House Books and author of the novel A Grammar of Endings . They discuss the past twenty years' boom in Toronto writing; what factors, including an embarrassing mayor in the nineties, made "mythologizing our own city" possible; why Coach House prints right there on premises, "giving cultural producers access to the means of production"; the technological palimpsest of Coach House's offices; the origi...
Oct 20, 2014•58 min
In Toronto's Kensington Market, Colin Marshall talks to Corey Mintz, author of the Toronto Star column "Fed" and the book How to Host a Dinner Party . They discuss what makes a dinner party a Torontonian dinner party; the city's "uptight" reputation; how he bottomed out in his initial cooking career, winding up working the kitchen at a dinner theater; how he converted to writing and also found a way to take a friend's advice that he "should host dinner parties for a living"; the time he made lun...
Oct 17, 2014•1 hr
In Toronto's Church-Wellesley Village, Colin Marshall talks to Shawn Micallef, editor and co-owner of Spacing magazine, Toronto Star columnist, and author of such books as Stroll: Psychogeographic Walking Tours of Toronto and The Trouble with Brunch . They discuss his first "long, deliberate" walk in Toronto, which happened by accident; what, exactly, caused this trouble with brunch; his youth in Windsor and his discovery of the middle class in Toronto, which brunches routinely; the death threat...
Oct 14, 2014•1 hr 9 min
At Toronto's Queen and Logan, Colin Marshall talks with Denise Balkissoon , co-founder of The Ethnic Aisle and writer on a variety of Torontonian subjects from multiculturalism to real estate for publications like Toronto Life , the Toronto Star , the Globe and Mail , and The Grid. They discuss her reputation as an astute observer of the multiculture; what happens at the intersection of multiculturalism and real estate; the wealth flowing into downtown, and the resulting push of "racialized comm...
Oct 11, 2014•33 min
In Toronto's Bloordale, Colin Marshall talks with Russell Smith, author of such novels as How Insensitive , Noise , Muriella Pent , and Girl Crazy , as well as style and culture columns in The Globe and Mail , the book Men's Style: The Thinking Man's Guide to Dress , and the e-book Blindsided: How Twenty Years of Writing About Booze, Drugs and Sex Ended in the Blink of an Eye . They discuss whether characteristically Torontonian style choices exist apart from women with business clothes and inco...
Oct 08, 2014•1 hr 4 min
Near Toronto's Danforth, Colin Marshall talks to Dylan Reid, senior editor at Spacing magazine, former co-chair of the Toronto Pedestrian Committee, and co-founder of Walk Toronto. They discuss whether the term "pedestrianism" has become as unappealing as the term "classical music"; the nature of the Danforth and its Greek roots; spatial ways to think about one's walks; the quintessentially Torontonian things he's noticed only while walking; the controversial practice of "façadism" and what it o...
Oct 04, 2014•1 hr 5 min
Above Toronto's Glad Day Bookshop, Colin Marshall talks to Jaime Woo , writer, game designer, co-founder of the Toronto video game festival Gamercamp (the next edition of which happens this month), and author of Meet Grindr: How One App Changed the Way We Connect . They discuss taking the measure of a city by firing up Grindr and examining its men; things people have figured out how to use the app for other than hooking up and sending "a slew of dick pics"; how such apps have illustrated the dec...
Oct 01, 2014•1 hr 5 min
Colin Marshall sits down in Studio City with Mark Frauenfelder, founder of the popular zine-turned-blog Boing Boing , founding co-editor of Make magazine , and author of Maker Dad: Lunch Box Guitars, Antigravity Jars, and 22 Other Incredibly Cool Father-Daughter DIY Projects . They discuss whether he still thinks about Los Angeles dingbat apartments , and the extent to which their owners have customized them today; all barriers falling for the modern maker except for the one asking who's interes...
Sep 16, 2014•1 hr 2 min
Colin Marshall sits down at the University of Southern California with School of Architecture professor James Steele , author of many books on architecture and architects, including, just over twenty years ago, Los Angeles Architecture: The Contemporary Condition . They discuss the how the city's conflict with "autopia" has gone since then; the obsolescence of not just the freeways, but the city itself; whether Los Angeles has gone from too architecturally crazy to not architecturally crazy enou...
Sep 09, 2014•1 hr 4 min
Colin Marshall sits down in Pasadena with Pete Mitchell , visual artist, game designer, zombie enthusiast, and lead singer and co-founder of the band No More Kings, whose latest album III came out this year. They discuss now as an opportune time to be into zombies; how his mom got him into not just zombie movies but Dungeons & Dragons; the "love letter to the 1980s" he wrote with the first No More Kings album; his early forays into game design, typing in code line-by-line and saving it on a ...
Aug 29, 2014•1 hr 17 min
Colin Marshall sits down in Highland Park with Javier Cabral, the "food, booze, and punk rock" writer formerly known as The Teenage Glutster, and currently known as The Glutster . They discuss his mission to change the official punk rock food of Los Angeles from the Oki-dog to the taco; the reasons for the taco's current surge of general popularity; the reputation Mexican food has, even among the otherwise culinarily aware, as "just Mexican food"; the humbling his Mexican-food expertise received...
Aug 22, 2014•57 min
Colin Marshall sits down in Los Feliz with artist, filmmaker, and writer William E. Jones . They discuss what one learns by viewing a city through the prism of its gay porn; how Los Angeles gives away the least of itself in that form as in others; home he introduced Fred Halsted's "gay porn masterpiece" L.A. Plays Itself to Los Angeles Plays Itself maker Thom Andersen , and how the movie helped fund Chantal Akerman's first projects; Selma Avenue, once the "hustler central" of Los Angeles; the ci...
Aug 08, 2014•1 hr 7 min
Colin Marshall sits down in Koreatown with Noé Montes , photographer and publisher of El Aleph Books. They discuss what MacArthur Park, that place "beyond any laws or organization," means to him; what difference the much-discussed light of Los Angeles makes for a photographer; the city's sunsets, beaches, palm trees, and the ultimate fact of its being "kind of ugly"; the New Yorker who told him he "just doesn't get" Los Angeles; the pleasures of living in a city that doesn't need defending; the ...
Jul 31, 2014•1 hr 3 min
Colin Marshall sits down in Santa Monica with Jason Boog , former publishing editor a Mediabistro and author of Born Reading: Bringing Up Bookworms in a Digital Age. They discuss what freaks us out about the idea of a baby with an iPad; his project's venerable predecessor The Read-Aloud Handbook ; the importance of the very act of reading aloud, and especially what he calls "interactive reading"; the fallacy equating amount of books read with intelligence or even knowledge that plagues children ...
Jul 30, 2014•1 hr 1 min
Colin Marshall sits down in Culver City with Matthew Kang, food writer, editor of Eater LA , author of the blog Mattatouille , and proprietor of the Scoops Westside ice cream shop. They discuss the difference between eating on Los Angeles' west side and elsewhere in the city; how he manages to sell that health-conscious region on ice cream; the willingness of eaters, nowadays, to get back to the occasional bit of unhealthiness; how he prides himself on introducing unusual flavors to the public t...
Jul 26, 2014•1 hr 1 min
