Korean-American poet receives Walt Whitman Award

NEW YORK (AP) ― A young Korean-American poet has received a $5,000 award for first-time writers that also ensures the publication and thousands of sales of her debut collection. Hannah Sanghee Park has won the Walt Whitman Award, the Academy of American Poets announced Wednesday. Her book, “The Same-Different,” will be released next year by Louisiana State University. The poetry academy will purchase thousands of copies and distribute them to its members. Pulitzer Prize winner Rae Armantrout cho

CultureApril 10, 2014

Science and art: Unlikely partners create beauty

In this wired society, checking Facebook news feeds and Twitter updates is an hourly routine. Swipe the screen of your smartphone and you will instantly be immersed in a sea of information. Social networking services have become so addictive that the first thing many people do after waking up is fiddle with their smartphone to check for updates that arrived while they were asleep. This modern-day obsession with staying updated is critically observed by London-based art trio Troika in its latest

PerformanceApril 10, 2014

Big Bang’s T.O.P to exhibit photo collection next month

Big Bang member T.O.P will hold an exhibition next month to celebrate the release of his first photography collection.The “From TOP Exhibition,” will display photos from the collection “1st Pictorial Records From TOP” released Wednesday and unpublished photos personally picked by the K-pop star.The photography collection is a result of a collaboration between T.O.P, also known as Choi Seung-hyun, and photographer Hong Jang-hyun. The two visited New York in December 2013 to capture moments from t

April 10, 2014

Film starring BoA sold to 54 countries

South Korean pop superstar BoA’s English-language debut film has been exported to 54 countries around the world, the film’s local production company said Thursday.Directed by Duane Adler, best known for his dance-centric, youth-driven screenplays for “Save the Last Dance” and the “Step Up” films, “Make Your Move” is a South Korea-U.S. co-production about a man and a woman from different backgrounds who come to understand each other and fall in love through dance. “The movie was sold to 54 countr

April 10, 2014

Lorde, Imagine Dragons lead Billboard nominations

NEW YORK (AP) ― Newcomers Lorde and Imagine Dragons are the top contenders at next month’s Billboard Music Awards. The breakthrough acts are finalists in 12 categories, thanks to Lorde’s Grammy-winning multiplatinum hit “Royals” and Imagine Dragons’ “Radioactive,” also a multiplatinum Grammy winner. Those smashes are nominated for top Hot 100 song against Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines,” Katy Perry’s “Roar” and Miley Cyrus’ “Wrecking Ball.”Imagine Dragons is also up for top artist and will battle

PerformanceApril 10, 2014

IU to return with first remake album

Popular singer-songwriter IU will make a return next month with her first remake album and a series of concerts.The album will be her first remake since her debut in 2008. It will feature reinterpretations and rearrangements of past hits through IU’s signature vocals and musical sensibilities.The singer-songwriter will also stage a series of concerts, titled “Just one more step ... just that,” at Sogang University’s Mary Hall. Unlike IU’s previous concert last year, which was marked by a flashy

April 10, 2014

Why authors decide to self-publish

“I should write a book.” We’ve all heard that statement before from friends or family or co-workers. We might even have said it ourselves. We all have stories to tell, whether real or fictional.In the past, those who wrote a book faced a limited number of options: They shopped their manuscripts around to agents and editors at publishers, a process that could take years, if ever. Alternatively, they could contract with a vanity press for production that could cost them thousands of dollars. They

BooksApril 10, 2014

‘Dark Sacred Night’ rich in characters

And the Dark Sacred NightBy Julia Glass (Pantheon)Julia Glass can really do geezers. Her sure hand with the voices and idiosyncrasies of older men is the strongest thing about “And the Dark Sacred Night,” the third in a trio of novels featuring gay Scottish bookseller Fenno McLeod. He debuted in Glass’ National Book Award-winning “Three Junes” (2002), then returned in “The Whole World Over” (2006), where he got a boyfriend, a bantering, nurturing Greenwich Village restaurant owner named Walter.N

BooksApril 10, 2014

Book examines atomic era

The Age of Radiance: The Epic Rise and Dramatic Fall of the Atomic EraBy Craig Nelson (Scribner)There are few more mysterious and dangerous men in modern history than German nuclear scientist Werner Heisenberg, the man who could have given Adolf Hitler a nuclear bomb. That’s the joke behind the Heisenberg nickname for the mysterious science teacher/maniac meth cooker in “Breaking Bad.”The story that unfolds in Craig Nelson’s “The Age of Radiance” makes Walter White’s character seem laughably tam

BooksApril 10, 2014

Ehrenreich looks back on teenage encounter with reporter’s zeal

Barbara Ehrenreich never meant to write a memoir.“It seems very self-involved,” she says by phone from her home in Arlington, Virginia. “I have anxiety about it.”That anxiety is heightened at the moment because her new book, “Living With a Wild God: A Nonbeliever‘s Search for the Truth About Everything” (Twelve, $26), is as personal a piece of writing as she has ever done, built around a journal from her teenage years that traces both a spiritual quest and a youthful mystical experience, each ha

BooksApril 10, 2014

‘Captain America 3’ will go up against ‘Superman’

After sweeping the North American box office with “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” Walt Disney Co. announced that “Captain America 3” would return on May 6, 2016, Reuters reported Monday. Numerous news reports focused mainly on the fact that “Captain America 3” was scheduled to be released on the same day as Warner Brothers’ sequel to “Man of Steel” -- a reworking of the Superman series.Based on DC Comics hero Superman, last year’s “Man of Steel”grossed $688 million. DC Comics seems to be

FilmApril 10, 2014

Promising indie films hit theaters

The year 2011 was a memorable period for Korea’s independent cinema. A number of films, such as Yoon Sung-hyun’s “Bleak Night,” Park Jung-bum’s “The Journals of Musan” and Min Yong-geun’s “Re-encounter,” enjoyed both critical and commercial success.The industry hopes to see such success repeated this year, as some of the most anticipated indie films are opening in theaters all at once this month. One of them is director Lee Su-jin’s local debut feature “Han Gong-ju,” which nabbed eight trophies

FilmApril 9, 2014

Classic nude gets modern reworking

French sculptor Xavier Veilhan is holding his first exhibition in Korea, presenting life-size and miniature human figures along with architecture-inspired mobiles. His works have been exhibited in such prominent places as Versailles in 2009 and the Centre Georges Pompidou in 2004. His sculptures are displayed on the streets of New York, Lyon, Sweden and Seoul. One of his blue geometric human sculptures is on permanent display near the Museum of Modern Art in New York. His horse sculpture is part

PerformanceApril 9, 2014

Poet Ko Un to attend overseas literary festivals

Renowned South Korean poet Ko Un will visit London, Berlin and Chicago this year to attend various literary festivals, a local publisher said Wednesday.According to Changbi Publishers, which has printed many of Ko’s poems, he will attend a “poetry night for Ko Un’s poems” hosted by the Victoria and Albert Museum, considered to be one of the world’s greatest museums of art and design, in London on May 30. The London event will draw many influential writers working in London, Changbi said.  After

CultureApril 9, 2014

Bruno Mars brings sexy, groovy ‘Moonshine Jungle’ to Seoul

International music sensation Bruno Mars lit up Seoul’s Olympic Park on Tuesday night as 13,000 rowdy fans filled the Gymnastics Stadium for the Hawaii native’s first-ever concert in Korea.“We came to get you all moving, to get you all shakin’ and to get you all dancing, so get off your feet!” Mars shouted as he kicked off the show. Through his ongoing worldwide Moonshine Jungle Tour, the original hooligan himself pulled out all the stops in a near-nonstop 90-minute show that closed with an elec

PerformanceApril 9, 2014

Psy, Big Bang, other artists become YG shareholders

Psy, Big Bang and other YG Entertainment artists have now become shareholders of their own management agency.YG’s main producer Yang Hyun-suk and CEO Yang Min-suk allocated a total of 81,400 shares to 18 of the agency’s artists, transferring parts of the preemptive rights they hold as YG’s majority shareholders on Tuesday.In doing so, the two company chiefs became the first ever in the local entertainment industry to transfer exclusive preemptive rights to the agency’s artists.The decision allow

April 9, 2014

JYP chief tops music copyright earnings

Park Jin-young, singer, and main producer and head of entertainment giant JYP Entertainment, ranked No. 1 in music copyright earnings in 2013 for the third consecutive year.Park earned the most in copyright royalties as a songwriter-producer in 2013, according to the 2013 Music Copyright Total Earnings report released by the Korea Music Copyright Association on Tuesday. With a net profit of 1.2 billion won ($1.2 million) in 2013, Park topped the list of copyright earners each year since 2011. Ho

April 9, 2014

More accordion fans squeezing in lessons

LOS ANGELES ― Across the street from a wine lounge and a gourmet sausage spot in the Atwater Village neighborhood of Los Angeles, a small red-and-white neon sign reads: “DAVE’S ACCORDION SCHOOL.”Inside, black and tan cases sprawl in a row along the floor, and two shelves hold a hodgepodge of squeezeboxes for sale. Business cards of norteno stars blanket a corkboard near the door, and nearby there’s a printout of the dictionary’s definition of the word “accordion,” with a suggested alternative: “

PerformanceApril 9, 2014

Iranians avoid bad luck with outdoor festival

TEHRAN (AP) ― Iranians flocked to parks rich with the smell of grilled kebabs on Wednesday to toss around Frisbees, bat badminton birdies and battle one another in chess and backgammon ― all to avoid being caught inside on the unlucky 13th day of the Persian New Year. The annual public picnic day, called Sizdeh Bedar, which comes from the Farsi words for “thirteen” and “day out,” is a legacy from Iran’s pre-Islamic past that hardliners in the Islamic Republic never managed to erase from calendar

CultureApril 9, 2014