“Fake Kim Hyoyeon” (Hyo’s Level Up, YouTube)
Kim Rieun: Somewhere along the line, “the fake life” became shorthand for the curated self people perform on social media and in public—a wry term for the version of yourself you put on for others. In the mockumentary “Fake Kim Hyoyeon,” HYOYEON seems to be living exactly that kind of fake life. Her eyes roll into the back of her head as she strains to hit the high notes in “Golden” in a desperate attempt to become the lead singer of the new Girls’ Generation subunit HYORISOO (HYOYEON, YURI, and SOOYOUNG), and she brushes off a personal color consultant’s verdict to insist she’s more suited to cool tones. When IRENE explains that pigtails look better at different heights for different ages, HYOYEON defiantly pulls hers up practically to the top of her head. Despite it all, the fake life HYOYEON performs shows she clearly has a particular look she’s going for and with none of the posturing that usually comes with it. She’s perfectly open about what she wants, and she doesn’t care about how reaching for it will make her look. That’s what makes “Fake Kim Hyoyeon” a parody of the fake life starring someone who couldn’t be further from it.

“Fake Kim Hyoyeon” is a mockumentary, and it asks everyone involved to do ridiculous things they’d never dream of doing otherwise. Take MUZIE. Before their vocal lesson even begins, he spends six hilarious minutes airing his grievances about HYOYEON not following him on social media. The younger artists who show up to HYOYEON’s dressing room practically fall over each other to show their admiration for the self-proclaimed 2.5-gen idol, presenting her with copies of their latest music on tape or CDs. Once the chaos clears and they’ve all gone, the camera inevitably cuts back to HYOYEON looking completely exhausted. But the audience knows it’s all in good fun, and the cast has to keep a straight face as they ham up their fake personalities in this fake world. And so “Fake Kim Hyoyeon,” despite its name, becomes a strange world where everyone gets to set aside the pressure to seem like they’re doing better than they actually are. At the center of it all is the acclaimed member of Girls’ Generation—the most successful girl group of K-pop’s second generation—who’s already experienced and achieved so much. So what new things are there left to try? Luckily, HYOYEON’s found the answer.

“A & E” (Park Hyo Shin)
Kim Hyojin (music columnist): What role does art play? It’s about as easy a question to answer as if someone asked what the meaning of life is. Life is fleeting, and it’s plenty sufficient that we who live it get to decide what it means for ourselves. If you apply that same logic to art, then Park Hyo Shin sees the role of music as something that tenderly graces the world around us. The sound rings out, bouncing off the troubled ridges of the world, and soon you get a good enough feel for what this world’s all about. It’s not usually about broadcasting a particular message. Park lives in the very world his music explores, and his songs dive into his inner world, too. The music cascades around the walls deep inside, and with a kind of friction, the matter of his feelings becomes clear. It represents a healing process for Park. For someone who’s spent nearly 30 years plugging away at his craft, Park can no longer simply look at music as a job he performs. It’s more like the thing that puts him on the world’s wavelength—the thing that helps you know yourself, another mother tongue for everything you’re feeling.

Park’s latest EP, “A & E,” revolves around love. The object of that affection could be anyone. The world may be a cruel and painful place, but the feeling of being loved, or of loving someone, can give us the strength to face another day. The sonic texture of the whole album is so delicately layered that you could practically reach out and feel the fine threads woven together into a single emotional cloth. The track “Stellar Night” is built around gospel harmonies, the backing instruments gradually rising to a final orchestral passage as vast as the universe itself. The song “AE” turns the human voice into its own impressive instrument, and the piano-driven “Any Love” fills a space that slowly opens up under swelling strings.

For all seven songs on the EP, the message Park sings of is the same—to bask in the kind of warmth only love can provide. That’s a feeling that will never wear away.

“Book Club for Troublesome Women” (Marie Bostwick)
Kim Boksung (writer): Look for a group activity to join these days, and you’re likely to come across some book club options. There’s something analog and almost retro about reading now, making “The Book Club for Troublesome Women” a particularly apt pick to read with others—not only because of what’s hinted at in the title, but the setting is particularly retro, set in 1960s suburban America. There’s a tint of nostalgia to the text, but the story starts out in a darker place. Margaret is living what should be her dream family life, but she can’t escape a nagging feeling that something’s missing. An aspiring writer kept down by society of the time, she ends up forming a book club as an excuse to get close to Charlotte, a new neighbor with an intriguing air about her. The contrast between the magazine Margaret’s husband gives her, “A Woman’s Place,” and the book the club discusses—“The Feminine Mystique,” a book from our real world—spells out the message of the novel explicitly. What unfolds is a story of friendship, personal identity, and questioning societal expectations. Aside from the real-world book, the references to real well-known figures, as well as the everyday struggles of mid-century women in America—with jobs, bank accounts, and even medicines being out of their reach—Marie Bostwick’s historical fiction novel is a frustrating but ultimately eye-opening read.