When not writ­ing here at Open Cul­ture, I host and pro­duce Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture (iTunes link), a globe-trav­el­ing pod­cast ded­i­cat­ed to in-depth con­ver­sa­tion with cul­tur­al cre­ators, inter­na­tion­al­ists, and observers of the urban scene about the work they do and the world cities they do it in. Through Kick­starter, I’ve fund­ed the show’s first four sea­sons, with inter­views record­ed in places like Los Ange­les, Osa­ka, Van­cou­ver, Mex­i­co City, Copen­hagen, and Lon­don. Today, a new Kick­starter dri­ve begins to fund the show’s lat­est and most ambi­tious ven­ture: the Korea Tour, a sea­son of con­ver­sa­tions record­ed all around the most fas­ci­nat­ing coun­try in Asia today.

You may well have already enjoyed the con­sid­er­able and often sur­pris­ing fruits of mod­ern Kore­an cul­ture through its film (Hong Sang­soo’s work first pulled me in, and boy, does it con­tin­ue to), its music (which, I can assure you, goes well beyond Girls’ Gen­er­a­tion and “Gang­nam Style”), its tele­vi­sion (which, by the same token, offers more than all report­ed­ly addic­tive melo­dra­mas), or its food (the expe­ri­ence of which does­n’t start and end at bar­be­cue joints). On Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture’s Korea Tour, you’ll go much deep­er, hear­ing from a wide vari­ety of inter­est­ing peo­ple based in Korea, out­side as well as in the vast and undoubt­ed­ly excit­ing cap­i­tal of Seoul. I’ll talk to as wide a range as pos­si­ble of Kore­ans and for­eign­ers alike, includ­ing the lit­er­ar­i­ly, tech­no­log­i­cal­ly, aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly, culi­nar­i­ly, and cin­e­mat­i­cal­ly inclined — to name but a few of their many incli­na­tions.

If you’d like to make the Korea Tour hap­pen, please do vis­it its Kick­starter page with­in the week, dur­ing which we’ll need to raise its $5000 bud­get. Should you decide to become a backer, rewards include post­cards from Korea, men­tions of your project or mes­sage on the show, and copies from the very-lim­it­ed-indeed print run of my tex­tu­al and pho­to­graph­ic Korea Diary. 여러분, 읽어 주셔서 감사합니다. 한국에 갑시다!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

“Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture,” a World­wide In-Depth Inter­view Pod­cast, Kick­start­ing Now

A Wealth of 20th-Cen­tu­ry Kore­an Cin­e­ma, Free Online from the Kore­an Film Archive

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on cities, lan­guage, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

Ever since I’ve writ­ten posts here on Open Cul­ture, I’ve host­ed and pro­duced Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture, a pod­cast ded­i­cat­ed to in-depth, long-form inter­views with cul­tur­al cre­ators, inter­na­tion­al­ists, and observers of the urban scene. In its three sea­sons so far, I’ve roamed cities like Los Ange­les, San Fran­cis­co, Port­land, Van­cou­ver, Mex­i­co City, Kyoto, Nara, and Osa­ka record­ing all of these con­ver­sa­tions face to face with guests like writer of place Pico Iyer, Book­worm host Michael Sil­verblatt, MetaFil­ter founder Matt Haugh­ey, film crit­ic Kari­na Long­worth, Los Ange­les Review of Books edi­tor Tom Lutz, graph­ic design­er Clive Pier­cy, park­ing the­o­rist Don­ald Shoup, con­cep­tu­al artist Jonathon Keats, Slate pod­cast pro­duc­er Andy Bow­ers, Japan spe­cial­ist Roland Kelts, nov­el­ist Tim­o­thy Tay­lor, and monolo­gist Josh Korn­bluth.

For the next sea­son, the show’s fourth and most ambi­tious, I’ll record full-length con­ver­sa­tions with six­ty more lumi­nar­ies not just in Los Ange­les, but in the Lon­don, Toron­to, and Copen­hagen as well. As with pre­vi­ous sea­sons, I launched a Kick­starter dri­ve last week to fund it. As of this writ­ing, it’s raised $5,138 of its $8,000 bud­get, but it only has six­teen hours. If we don’t raise the full amount by Mon­day, June 24th at noon Pacif­ic time, the sea­son won’t hap­pen at all. If Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture’s fourth sea­son strikes you as some­thing you’d like to help make a real­i­ty, please do vis­it the show’s Kick­starter page. Thanks very much indeed!

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.