Kitchen Table Kibitzing is a community series for those who wish to share a virtual kitchen table with other readers of Daily Kos who aren’t throwing pies at one another. Drop by to talk about music, your weather, your garden, or what you cooked for supper…. Newcomers may notice that many who post in this series already know one another to some degree, but we welcome guests at our kitchen table and hope to make some new friends as well.
The Oregonian often profiles some interesting people, projects, and businesses. Tonight, I am am sharing a recent one of a very talented young woman who was born and raised in Oregon but who now lives on the east coast, Michelle Zauner. Ms. Zauner’s mother was Korean, her father a white American. She and her mother had a very close relationship which was quite tempestuous, as often happens with mothers and daughters. Her mother wanted a certain life for her daughter (not Bohemian) while Michelle had a passion for creating music and playing with a band (by definition pretty Bohemian). Yes, after college, Michelle was living the life of a starving artist in Philadelphia. But then, suddenly, everything changed when her mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Michelle Zauner went home to care for her mother. Sadly, her mother passed away while in her mid fifties and Michelle was just twenty-five. The book is a memoir about her family, grief, and all the memories she shared with her mother — and some things she only discovered after her mother was gone.
Oregon-raised author Michelle Zauner’s ‘Crying in H Mart’ to become feature film
For many artists, Michelle Zauner’s past two months could have been a brilliant career. The Eugene-born memoirist and singer-songwriter released a memoir to raves in April, consulted on the music in the hit HBO murder mystery “Mare of Easttown” and, on Friday, released a new album, “Jubilee,” with her indie rock band Japanese Breakfast, complete with three self-directed videos and a song of the summer contender in “Be Sweet.”
But Zauner isn’t done pushing her chips in yet. On Monday, MGM subsidiary Orion Pictures announced it had acquired the rights to Zauner’s best-selling memoir, “Crying in H Mart,” for a feature film. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Zauner will adapt the book, which details her struggles with grief and attempts to strengthen her Korean American identity through food after her mother Chongmi’s 2014 death from cancer. Japanese Breakfast will provide the film’s soundtrack.
I’ve read Crying in H Mart and can tell you it is very, very well done. Michelle Zauner is not afraid to look at difficult things, be they within herself, her relationships with her parents, or the pain and anxiety of caring for a loved one who is dying of cancer. She writes with honesty and grace — and even a little humor — about her life’s milestones, trying to make it in American pop music where there are few people who look like her, and reconnecting with her mother and learning about her Korean family and its culture. The H Mart of the title? It’s a chain of Asian grocery stores, a place to buy the foods her mother loved. (There may be one near you!)
Japanese Breakfast’s music videos have an edginess derived from self reflection as well and some are quite disturbing. Like any good art, they will make you think. Here is the song for the summer (one of the milder videos).
The weekend begins now. Come in, be comfortable, and share your day, your weekend plans, your menus! This is an open thread.