{"id":24933,"date":"2014-04-01T00:01:54","date_gmt":"2014-04-01T04:01:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=24933"},"modified":"2020-08-07T09:37:20","modified_gmt":"2020-08-07T13:37:20","slug":"the-unauthorized-autobiography-of-kim-jong-il-qa-with-michael-malice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2014\/04\/01\/the-unauthorized-autobiography-of-kim-jong-il-qa-with-michael-malice\/","title":{"rendered":"The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong Il: Q&#038;A with Michael Malice"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"853\" height=\"480\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/d2EBUE4BfQU\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Published on 28 Mar 2014<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Kim Jong Il, who was the supreme leader of North Korea until his death in 2011, was a leading authority on gymnastics, cinema, literature, war, cooking, and the arts. He wrote 1,400 works when he was in college, including a senior thesis that was an achievement comparable to Columbus&#8217; discovery of America. He revolutionized the opera, personally discovered that Paleolithic man originated on the Korean Peninsula, and came up with a theory of art that was as impactful on modern culture as the Copernican Revolution. Why did the supreme leader always wear sunglasses? That&#8217;s because his eyes were constantly bloodshot from staying up all night figuring out ways to help his country.<\/p>\n<p>These are details from celebrity ghostwriter (and former editor of <em>Overheard in New York<\/em>) Michael Malice&#8217;s new book <em>Dear Reader: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong Il<\/em>, a strange, tragic, and humorous first-person account of the supreme leader&#8217;s life. On March 18, 2014, at an event held at New York City&#8217;s Museum of Sex and sponsored by the Reason Foundation, The <em>New York Times<\/em> columnist John Tierney sat down with Malice to discuss the book.<\/p>\n<p>Highlights from the event included a discussion of how Malice came to write <em>Dear Reader<\/em> (1:28); why Kim Jong Il is despised by North Koreans (7:00); how North Koreans are forced to engage in regular self-criticism sessions in which they&#8217;re denounced by their peers (9:00); why it was a surprise that Kim Jong Il succeeded his father, Kim Il-sung (12:00); why there&#8217;s no hope that political change will come to North Korea anytime soon (20:20); Ayn Rand&#8217;s influence on Malice (23:20); why Kim Jong Il hated the Mona Lisa (27:15); an example of a North Korean joke (29:15); why Malice thinks the media&#8217;s coverage of Dennis Rodman&#8217;s relationship with Kim Jong Un is deplorable (31:35); the story behind the 1987 bombing of Flight 858 by North Korean agents (33:20); the origins of the Korean famine (41:00); Kim Jong Il&#8217;s &#8220;spot on critiques of U.S. foreign policy&#8221; (42:00); why North Korea allows its citizens to reunite with family members from South Korea (43:30); the relationship between China and North Korea (50:00); and North Korea&#8217;s nuclear capabilities (51:15).<\/p>\n<p>For more on Malice&#8217;s time in North Korea researching the book, read his account from the August\/September 2013 issue of <em>Reason<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Published on 28 Mar 2014 Kim Jong Il, who was the supreme leader of North Korea until his death in 2011, was a leading authority on gymnastics, cinema, literature, war, cooking, and the arts. He wrote 1,400 works when he was in college, including a senior thesis that was an achievement comparable to Columbus&#8217; discovery [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,32,7,57,28],"tags":[1077,279,463],"class_list":["post-24933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia","category-books","category-history","category-humour","category-media","tag-autobiography","tag-korea","tag-parody"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-6u9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24933"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24933\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24934,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24933\/revisions\/24934"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}