Fairy Jaehyung (YouTube)

Yoon Haein: Fairy’s Table is a show on YouTube channel Fairy Jaehyung where musician Jung Jae Hyung invites guests to his house for a meal and conversation. While sharing recent updates and memories with long-time acquaintances and covering various topics based on the guests, Jung also mentions bits about the guests’ primary occupations and guides their conversation to flow seamlessly like a talk show. Drawing from their longstanding friendships, he even throws jokes, engages in playful banter with the guests, and offers humor, inviting the audience to freely laugh along.

The episode “Today will be remembered as the day Antenna broke,” in particular, reveals his charming bickering nature more prominently. As Jung Jae Hyung’s words in the opening “They’re a bit quiet and crazy,” imply, the video featuring artists from his agency, Antenna Music, starts off calmly without stimulation, but before long, it bursts out with laughter. Although the group is about to celebrate its 20th anniversary, PEPPERTONES’ Lee Jang-won refers to themselves as the youngest in the senior citizen center of Antenna and Shin Jae-pyeong uses cynical humor; musician Lee Sang Soon says he’s “living a life as a cafe owner”; and Lucid Fall shares an anecdote about struggling with sleepiness while mixing a new song for over an hour; and as a musician, Jung Jae Hyung discusses recording and autotune techniques, self-mockingly adding, “Those who are good singers can relate to this story.” It’s not the usual “tone fit for airing,” but their somewhat oddly serious and cynical conversations are momentarily replaced by laughter, offering a brief moment of amusement. On top of that, Jung Jae Hyung, who studied in France and has hosted a cooking program, offers a cozy space with aesthetically pleasing food, giving you more mental comfort. Nice food, champagne, good music, and casual conversation with close friends. Perhaps this is the kind of joy and warmth best for the year end.

HIPHOPDX AWARDS 2023

Kang Ilkwon (Music Critic): Various awards ceremonies and year-end lists in the music world, usually held between December and January, provide valuable information. Because they encapsulate the year’s trends in a concise format. In Hip Hop, the BET Awards, which covers the overall black entertainment, and the BET Hip Hop Awards, which specifically focus on Hip Hop, are among the most renowned. However, if you are curious about credible selections like major awards that offer a different type of enjoyment, I recommend the year-end list by the online magazine HipHopDX. HipHopDX offers news, interviews, and is the only media outlet in the Hip Hop scene that consistently publishes columns critiquing albums. Most importantly, it covers veterans, rookies, and both mainstream and indie artists alike. The annual award nominees distinctly reflect the tendency of the media. They value rap skills and musicality based on their own criteria rather than the performance on charts. A case in point is the Best Rapper of the Year including Danny Brown, J. Cole, Lil Wayne, NAS, Killer Mike; the Hip Hop Rookie of the Year including Sexyy Red, Lola Brooke, That Mexican OT, Teezo Touchdown, Veeze. HipHopDX team has been known to get together every year to discuss and sometimes argue over the final selections. The culmination of this process is the HipHopDX Awards. The nominees, or works released between December 1st, 2022, and December 1st, 2023, were unveiled over a week, with winners announced starting from December 18th. As is the case with all awards and year-end lists, not everyone agrees with or is content with the HipHopDX’s selections. Still, I can’t help but admire their pride on “being a valuable and trusted source on all things Hip Hop for those who love the culture as much as we do”. It is undoubtedly the most concise list encapsulating American Hip Hop in 2023. 

Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

Kim Gyeoul (Writer): Bells ringing in the streets, excited people, and bustling pubs. It’s year 2054, with Christmas just around the corner, and Kivrin is about to set out on a time travel journey back to the Middle Ages. She studied medieval culture and its clothing, learned the language, and got different types of vaccinations. Professor Dunworthy and the technician Badri finished all the preparations for Kivrin’s “slippage”. And after Kivrin’s slippage, Badri suddenly realizes something. Badri falls ill with a fever, uttering words about something going wrong, and soon, a plague begins to spread among the people. Hospitals and universities go into lockdown mode. Dunworthy frantically rushes around, trying to save Kivrin, but regardless, Kivrin, who slipped to the Middle Ages, also starts to suffer from a high fever. Now, Dunworthy dedicates himself to rescuing Kivrin, who dedicates herself to saving the Medieval people.

The story that shifts back and forth between now and the Middle Ages is urgent, spectacular, making readers unable to put the book down. Above all, the deepest sentiment within it is love for people. Readers would find themselves growing attached to the characters as Dunworthy and Kivrin fully dedicate themselves to those around them. Meanwhile, Kivrin consistently mentions that no one deserves to suffer this much from a disease, regardless of any wrongs they may have done, and that plague isn’t God’s punishment. Perhaps this is the type of book we should read on Christmas and year-end. Nonetheless, always loving people. As Connie Willis once wrote in the preface of her Christmas stories, “Despite overwhelming evidence, Christmas is the time for those who believe in the lesson that ‘man can change and atone’.” I hope we can bid farewell to this year with love and generosity, and welcome the next with open hearts.