Lee Ok-nam’s grandson published her diary as a book called *Ninety-Seven Times of Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter*. It’s a book the poet Ahn Hee-yeon recommended on a segment she and I did together when I used to host a radio show. The grandmother’s way of speaking is folksy and full of verbal flavor; it’s a book you can keep company with over a meal. There’s a diary entry in which she talks about hope, and rereading that passage while working on this album, “Brilliant,” moved me deeply. Strictly speaking, essays and memoirs were genres I didn’t tend to favor, but this book changed that for me.
