Happy Monday! Hope everyone had a great Easter weekend (or a good spring weekend, if you don’t celebrate!)
We have an adorable giveaway today, courtesy of Inhae Lee of My Milk Toof!
Inhae Lee is a California-based artist, blogger and the creator of two milk teef named ickle and Lardee – she chronicles their adventures at her popular blog, My Milk Toof, which recently turned two. They do everything from bake cupcakes to play cards and they stay cute the entire time!
Unfortunately, we don’t have any milk teef to give away – those are precious – but we do have the recently released book, My Milk Toof: The Adventures of ickle and Lardee, to give away!
To win the book, leave a comment by 5 p.m. PST on Friday, April 29th.
Tweet this giveaway (include a link and mention our Twitter name, @KoreAm) for an extra entry. Link to your tweet in a separate comment. U.S. Entries Only.
Posted: April 18th, 2011
Filed Under: April 2011 , Back Issues , BLOG , MONDAY GIVEAWAYS
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Composed of a diverse group of polished musicians, the conductor-less Sejong Soloists is showing the world that classical music can be rock star cool.
by Elizabeth Eun
photos courtesy of Sejong Soloists
A few years ago, when the Sejong Soloists played a concert before a crowd of 800 at a high school in Busan, South Korea, there was something noticeably unbalanced about the audience: It was 95 percent female. So perhaps the musical group shouldn’t have been so surprised when throngs of teenage girls began mobbing the members for autographs and photos after the concert.
“It was like being a rock star,” recalled Adam Barnett-Hart, a member of the group. But what made this reception so “weird,” to use the choice word of Barnett-Hart, is that Sejong Soloists is a string orchestra. The New York-based ensemble of violinists, cellists, violists and bassists plays classical music to the tune of Haydn and Mendelssohn. Still, though the Soloists don’t rock out, its sound obviously moves people, and not just teenage girls. Music critics have called the group’s work “vibrant” and even “miraculous.”
Since its inception in 1995, the orchestra (formerly known as the International Sejong Soloists) has performed sold-out concerts across the globe, including performances at Carnegie Hall in New York, Wigmore Hall in London and the Salle Gaveau in Paris. The group’s broad appeal matches well with its mission statement, as envisioned by artistic director Hyo Kang, a renowned violin professor at Yale and Juilliard who founded the Soloists to serve as a musical ambassador to the world.
Posted: April 11th, 2011
Filed Under: April 2011 , Back Issues , BLOG , MONDAY GIVEAWAYS
Congrats to our Monday Giveaway winner, no.16!
He sent her doodles. She sewed him a doll. Ten years later, Sun-Min Kim and David Horvath are sitting pretty across their quirky Uglyverse.
by Oliver Saria
all photos courtesy of Pretty Ugly, LLC
It’s been nearly a decade since Sun-Min Kim sewed the first Uglydoll, and her company—Pretty Ugly LLC/Uglydoll, co-owned with her husband, David Horvath—has grown in (measured) leaps and bounds. What started off as drawings David included at the bottom of love letters he sent to Sun-Min have evolved into a plush phenomenon.
At different points along the way, however, Uglydolls, which play off oddball characteristics and perceived ugliness, may have never seen the light of day.
The Ugly saga began at Parsons, a design school in Manhattan, where David, now 40, and Sun-Min, now 35, met as students in 1997. Both studied illustration (Sun-Min more diligently than David, who spent most of his time doodling bizarre creatures and dreaming up kooky narratives). From the moment they met, they bonded over the mutual belief that toys were the perfect vehicles to tell stories.
Their initial meeting, however, was not love at first sight. Though they shared many interests and marveled at each other’s artwork, it took some time for Sun-Min to reciprocate David’s affection. The turning point came when Sun-Min broke her arm while snowboarding at the end of 1999. During her convalescence, David offered to make her an apple pie and rode the subway in the dead of winter from New York to her apartment in New Jersey with bags of apples tied to his arms. Apparently, it was stellar pie because they started dating shortly thereafter. But by 2001, Sun-Min’s student visa had expired and she returned to Korea, unsure how she might find her way back.
The answer came in a chance visit David made to the Giant Robot store in Los Angeles shortly after Sun-Min had sent him a felt, 12-inch, plush version of his illustrated character Wage—an orange, apron-clad grocery store worker. By that time, David was living in the West Coast where he had befriended the Giant Robot store owner (and Giant Robot publisher) Eric Nakamura. As David recounts, “I was just showing him [the doll], but he thought I was pitching him a product. He was like, ‘I’ll take 20.’” Soon, the dolls flew off the shelves.
In a matter of 18 months, Sun-Min—still stuck in Seoul—hand-sewed nearly 1,500 felt dolls, an even more amazing feat considering that she had never sewn anything prior to that. (Incidentally, a doll from the original hand-sewn collection now fetches upwards of $1,000 at auctions.) Meanwhile, her friends in Korea ribbed her for doing piecemeal work normally reserved for housewives who earned extra cash sewing eyeballs onto dolls at 10 cents per eye. “She studied in America,” her friends joked, “but now she’s [back in Korea] sewing eyeballs.”
We’re so excited about this week’s giveaway! We’ve always been a huge supporter of Kollaboration and we’re so proud of how much they’ve grown and expanded – they’re now in 12 cities, including Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, New York City, Tulsa, San Francisco, and now, for the first time ever, Boston!
Boston is a truly unique city, in that it’s filled with talented young students and professionals from all around the world, so we’re not surprised that Kollaboration has finally settled in Boston. The event will be the first city-wide Asian American talent show competition featuring all kinds of performing artists, including vocalists, musicians, dancers and instrumentalists.
More impressive is the fact that the show was produced entirely by students and young professionals – there are a total of 34 team members representing 14 different schools in this one event.
Happy Monday! We have a fun, if random, giveaway for you guys this week!
It’s been pretty dreary here in Los Angeles, which is even worse considering the fact that we had a few glorious days of spring, but we have the perfect rainy day solution!
Saturday Night Live – The Game! Perfect for game nights or a rainy, stay-at-home day.
To win the game, leave a comment by 5 p.m. PST on Friday, March 25th.
Tweet this giveaway (include a link and mention our Twitter name, @KoreAm) for an extra entry. Link to your tweet in a separate comment. U.S. Entries Only.
FOR ONLY $28!
Featured Event
One of the the biggest Asian cinema events to hit Southern California opens on May 10. The Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, presented by Visual Communications, features the latest works by established and emerging filmmakers, along with seminars, panel discussions and symposiums on topics relevant to Asian Pacific cinema.
Opening Night features “Shanghai Calling,” directed by Daniel Hsia and starring Korean American Daniel Henney, who plays a Chinese American expat lawyer navigating his way through the mean streets of Shanghai (the picture above also indicates he is a raisin smuggler). But does he take off his shirt? Go watch the movie to find out! read more
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