On a typical winter day, the Bard of Brooklyn’s Boerum Hill steps out onto the sidewalk to go to work. He wears only a light jacket; walks by eucalyptus trees, not delis; past charming suburban yards, not gritty subway stops. It’s Jonathan Lethem, one of New York’s most high-profile novelists, and he’s far from Brooklyn’s snow-filled sidewalks: he’s transplanted himself to Southern California.“I d

Books Feb. 25, 2011

Four volumes of “Azaleas,” a collection of poems by Kim Sowol (1902-1934), one of the most famous poets in early modern Korea, have been added to the nation’s cultural heritage list, the Cultural Heritage Administration said Thursday.The four volumes were first published in 1925, containing a total of 127 poems written by Kim. Beautifully poignant in style, a lot of Kim’s works are known to be rem

Books Feb. 24, 2011

Northeast Asian History Foundation is to launch various programs to promote Korea’s sovereignty over Dokdo, rocky islets in the East Sea that Japanese have claimed as part of their territory. The government affiliated research institution said its Dokdo programs would include educational workshops, promotional exhibitions, and symposiums that will discuss Japanese history textbooks that do not tak

Books Feb. 22, 2011

Personal documentary recounts tale of Korean-Japanese who resettled in N. KoreaMovie director Yang Yong-hi has a one-of-a-kind family.She lives in Tokyo, her mother in Osaka and her brothers in Pyongyang, North Korea.Born in Japan to pro-Pyongyang ethnic Korean parents, Yang tells about her life and family history in a cinematic form.But the 47-year-old director’s second personal documentary “Good

Film Feb. 21, 2011

We humans divide ourselves into camps.Liberals and conservatives.Cat people and dog people.Woody Allen fans and Adam Sandler fans.Sandler, whose “Just Go With It” opens Friday, occupies a place in the hearts of Gen-Xers much in the way that Woody Allen is a cultural icon for baby boomers.Those sounds you hear are the howls of protest and snorts of derision from graying movie watchers across the la

Film Feb. 18, 2011

What makes portraits different from other paintings?The substance of its subject, scholar Cho Sun-mie answers.An English edition of Cho’s book on Korean portrait paintings and their stylistic development ― mainly of the ones from the Joseon Dynasty (1392―1897) ― has been published. The book, “Great Korean Portraits: Immortal Images of the Noble and the Brave,” introduces portraits of 50 prominent

Books Feb. 18, 2011

Come Rain, Come Shine (Korea)Opening Mar. 3Drama. Directed by Lee Yoon-ki. A woman (Im Soo-jeong), who has been married for five years, one day tells her husband she wants to leave him for another man. The husband (Hyun Bin), an introvert who rarely speaks his mind, does not ask her why. On the day she moves out, he makes coffee and wraps her favorite teacup so she can take it with her. The film f

Film Feb. 18, 2011

This summer, 68-year-old Harrison Ford will be mixing it up with Old West-invading extraterrestrials in “Cowboys & Aliens.” Next month, 67-year-old Robert De Niro will star in the action thriller “Limitless.” When “The Expendables II” opens in 2012, the combined age of its top five prospective stars, God willing, will be 291 years.The landscape of recent motion pictures, in particular Manly Movies

Film Feb. 18, 2011

Sentimental but trueThe Old RomanticBy Louise Dean(Riverhead Books, $25.95)It’s easy to imagine readers being scared off by the all-saturating Englishness of Louise Dean’s novel “The Old Romantic,” published last year in the U.K. and this month in America.Start with unfamiliar references to Selfridges, Wade Whimsies, Maltesers and the Krankies (which are, respectively, a department store, porcelai

Books Feb. 18, 2011

When, at 6:15 a.m. on Feb. 11, 2008, Joyce Carol Oates saw her 77-year-old husband, Raymond Smith, eating breakfast, she did not ― could not ― know that he would be dead within a week. Still, she acknowledges in “A Widow’s Story,” her memoir of his death and its aftermath, she had the feeling that all was not right. “There is an hour, a minute ― you will remember it forever ― when you know instinc

Books Feb. 18, 2011

No author in his right mind would kill off a main character in the prime of a promising new series. Intellectually you know this. How, then, does David Ellis, author of the compelling new legal thriller “Breach of Trust” (Putnam), pull it off?How does he write a scene in which Jason Kolarich ― the two-fisted, headstrong hero of a crime novel set in a city that’s a dead ringer for Chicago ― looks t

Books Feb. 18, 2011

Popular tech-savvy novelist Kim Young-ha quit Twitter and blogging after a series of controversial online debates with literary critic Cho Young-il.The debate centered around the systemic problems in Korea’s literary scene and the tragic death of aspiring screenwriter Choi Go-eun, Kim’s former student at Korea National University of Arts (KNUA). Kim on Monday closed his Twitter account, which had

Books Feb. 16, 2011

Kim Young-na, the newly appointed director-general of the National Museum of Korea, would like to launch exhibitions that are more “fun and visually pleasing.” “(The) museum is the place where you exhibit the visual image (of the relics and art pieces),” the director told reporters at a press meeting held in Seoul on Monday. “Of course our research (of the exhibiting items) is important. But how w

Performance Feb. 14, 2011