Playlist #30: Cozy is an illusion

It's supposed to be an individual thing—and a lot of work—but now that it's an aesthetic, people are stepping on others' toes just to get the perfect shot.

Jun 13, 2025

By the time you read this, I still haven’t had a breather.

Two weeks into June, and I’ve already pulled the trigger on the busiest season of my year, and I’m preparing for a a couple of big events next week. But that’s to say nothing about how busy the past month has been, and not just because of the annual thing I do for work where we get on a boat for a day.

Let’s see. On the final week of the month, I found myself fielding more media interview requests than usual—usual being zero—since the government announced plans to finally rehabilitate, I mean “rebuild”, Manila’s most important thoroughfare. Usually it’s my bosses who do it, with me in the background, but in one instance I was asked to take one interview… which happened to be on the same night that one of the country’s most iconic radio brands made a comeback. There’s a lot of material in that paragraph for future posts on the Once Monthly, but let’s just say my organization’s “worse traffic will lead to higher prices” belief ended up getting a little bit more mileage than an interview at half past eight in the evening should, and when the government announced a pause in the plans, not a few people came to me to say, “I think your interview had something to do with it.” That’s far too much of a burden to bear, don’t you think?

And then, at the beginning of the month, there’s that trip to Jeju I mentioned in the last playlist. Now, flying to South Korea is not new to me, but planning a trip of this scale in just three weeks is—and knowing that you’re going there to represent the Philippines at one of the many APEC events South Korea is hosting this year makes it a little more intimidating. Me? An APEC delegate? Say it’s a stretch since I’m not working for the government, which means I’m not one of those folks spending long days getting the wording of a statement right, but then, I do have the ID that says “DELEGATE” to prove it.

Last month turned out to be one of those months when everything the horoscopes I somehow still read two years after I stopped having the need to do so came true. Sure, they’re always vague and say something about how my communication skills will come in handy and people will be impressed—something this guy with permanent impostor syndrome would not believe—but somehow, in the last few weeks, it all clicked. (And I haven’t even talked about the personal milestones I surpassed, to my horror, last month. Or, at least, flirted with surpassing.) After years of feeling like little is happening—not that I have a problem with it, because routines do lull people like me into security—suddenly, everything is, and I do need a breather.

My mind goes back to Jeju, and specifically, to the town of Jungmun, where the APEC events in the island were. It’s forty minutes away from the airport, and forty minutes away from the second largest city, Seogwipo. Essentially, it’s a quiet provincial town that happens to be the location of several really fancy five-star hotels, although my boss and I decided to book a three-star hotel instead, not because it’s cheaper, but because it’s much closer to downtown—and downtown is essentially this long street where the restaurants, convenience stores, and the one supermarket is. (But not the McDonald’s or the Starbucks: they’re nearer to the five-star hotels.)

Maybe part of this is because of the circumstances I experienced downtown Jungmun for the first time. I was operating on zero sleep—I just can’t fall asleep on planes, and we had no choice but to book a red-eye flight via Hong Kong—and I found myself wandering out of the hotel because it was way too early for us to be checked in. It was a cool 16 degrees—apparently it was an unusually cold spring; it would rain all day the next day—and the wind was pretty nice. I found myself not putting my earphones on, choosing to bathe in the sound of… nothing, really. Just the wind, the occasional whir of the electric city buses picking up passengers across the post office, and the wobble of the elderly who are out and about. This is a pretty hilly stretch and they’re still walking as if it’s nothing, I realized.

Cozy, isn’t it?

I’m in my mid-thirties. I know I should be complaining when the younger people go on and on about how they want their lives to be “cozy”. I’ve been there, with the younger ex-girlfriend and the insistence that I change my house lights to something warmer because it would make her photographs better, never mind that the bulbs were just installed. Safe to say I don’t like the aestheticization of cozy—of wooden furniture and warm colors and always, always, the right sunlight for every time you need to take a photo to prove that you live a cozy life. But I’m also the guy who lost hours to Stardew Valley. I’m also the guy who persisted on finally watching Skip and Loafer on a small screen on the flight back to Manila because the gentle humor and pleasing art made me feel fuzzy inside. I’m also the guy who, for some hitherto unknown reason, picked up Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-reum and actually finished the novel, although unfortunately that didn’t happen anywhere in Jungmun.

The APEC delegate life means special help desks in your hotel (if you’re booked in one of the hotels they recommended, as is the case for that three-star hotel that, honestly, does the job) and shuttles to the Jeju International Convention Centre, downtown Seogwipo, and the airport, and back. You kind of take it for granted until you realize that Jeju is a really big island, and even the tourist guidebooks advise you to rent a car to fully enjoy the place. But it works, and the volunteers with their orange ties are really helpful. “Where can I buy a K-pop album in Seogwipo?” I once asked, and they did take the time before giving me an address—and indeed, I ended up buying GFriend’s Season of Memories. It finally called out to me—not from Hong Kong, but from one of those artsy shops in actual South Korea.

I suppose cozy can mean “everything works”. If you don’t have to worry about anything—because everything works the way they are supposed to work—then you can have all this time to “romanticize life” and all that. But then, cozy is an illusion, because it takes a lot of hard work to make it so. Walkable streets, even for the elderly, does not happen overnight, and neither does helpful college students who seem to have an answer to everything an APEC delegate is ashamed to ask. (“Whose albums are you looking for?” “Well, GFriend is no longer around, so…” “GFriend?” “Oh, sorry—I meant 여자친구.”) I’ll sound like a motivational poster, but it’s teamwork, and it’s years of consistent work. And the sun not being harsh as it always seems to be in Manila is a plus.

Yeah, Manila is not a great place, frankly. It’s not so much crowded as it is congested, and everything only works if you can slide something extra in. The only “good” places tend to be hidden away in places the foreigners go to, or the upper-middle classes (and pretenders like me) tolerate. We talk about how government should provide more support to make our lives better, but when the government does give PHP 80,000 to a woman who lives in the streets and was snapped crawling out of a drainage canal—and there is more to the story than that eye-watering amount of money—people are resentful. “I should quit my job and find a hole to live in. I will earn more there. Why her, and why not me?”

Yeah, I suppose there’s a really fine line between “cozy” and “selfish”. Trust me, I’ve been there—and for the record, the light bulbs in my flat are still working, and they’re doing just fine. But despite sometimes thriving in the breakneck pace of the city and my life in these past few weeks—as I said before, I relish being at the center of it all after growing up literally on the fringes—I would still like to step back and take a breather. When I was putting together this month’s playlist I realized a lot of it is K-pop, and not just because I came from Jeju. Well, sure, Oh My Girl Banhana’s “Banana Allergy Monkey” hits differently when you play it on the back of a shuttle bus from Seochang Ilchilbong, when you’re craving for proper banana milk. (Yes, that’s an Oh My Girl subunit, and yes, I wrote about the main group last month.) But during one of my more difficult periods I found myself listening to K-pop exclusively, and it got me through.

I know I sound like a cliché, especially considering I am saying this on a music-centric newsletter, but cozy for me is being able to retreat to my flat—even if it can be a bit messy sometimes—listening to the music that comforts me: the opld songs that have been there all this time, and the new songs that sound just like it. Pretty much this month’s playlist. I’m still listening to a lot of Triple J, so there’s still a good amount of Aussie pop here, from G Flip and Spacey Jane and a track from a few years ago from Felivand. And, again, a lot of K-pop, including a (re)debut from albume, aka the three former members of Fifty Fifty who pushed through with their case against their former agency (the fourth member dropped the case and became the face of the “new” Fifty Fifty) and, now, produced a much more satisfying single than the other group could—and proof that, while rare, second chances in K-pop can be rewarding. (I would not have gotten wind of it if not for

K-Culture with Jae-Ha Kim

’s interview with the group, which I perused while sleepless in that Jeju hotel room.)

There’s also a hat tip to Ruby Ibarra, who won NPR’s Tiny Desk contest this year. I’ve heard of her, but haven’t listened to her, so I am proud to be late into the game on this one. “Bakunawa” does not exactly fit the cozy feel I was initially going for, but honestly, that’s the point—to get here, you have to go through something a little more confronting. And I know I say that at the risk of minimizing the message of her songs, which have always been front-and-center about the diaspora experience. Also, between this and composer Susie Ibarra (any relation?) winning this year’s Pulitzer Prize for Music, it’s easy to say Filipino music is having a moment… but it’s not far from one.

Still, explaining why most of these songs feel cozy to me somewhat defeats the purpose. The same way it’s weird how people have turned that adjective into a Pinterest mood board, cozy is something that really should be individually defined, rather than a blanket look that generate social media buzz and create sales. (How many coffee shops have you been in that’s designed to do just that? And how good is the coffee, really? My readers from the Philippines know what I mean, especially when I mention Coffee Project and its many, many derivatives.) Sure, sometimes our preferences will match, but imposing one standard above all seems weird. Stepping on other people’s toes, or kicking them to the curb, even, just to get there is plain wrong.

But then, how dare I say to all of you what cozy should be.

Provided I survive the next week or so, there should be a new Plaka Note on 27 June, and a new playlist on 11 July. And maybe I’ll get to work on those other essay ideas—including the second installment of Song Trigger that I’ve been itching to write for years—I’ve had to park because I’ve been too busy—that, and the delay suits the Once Monthly’s slow posting ideal. (It’s not as good as Delayed Gratification, though.) Until then, I’ll see you on the socials, or on nicksyoncemonthly@gmail.com, if you feel like recommending a song through good old email. Snail mail would be nice, sure, but our postal system hasn’t worked that way for a while now.

On this playlist

Oh My Girl Banhana—“Banana Allergy Monkey”
single release (2018)
Red Velvet—“러시안 룰렛” (Russian Roulette)
Russian Roulette (2016)
Lewis OfMan—“Siesta Freestyle” (featuring Alicia te quiero)
Dancy Party (2021)
Anna Erhard—“Botanical Garden”
Botanical Garden (2024)
Audrey Hobert—“Sue Me”
single release (2025)
G Flip—“Disco Cowgirl”
single release (2025)
Ruby Ibarra—“Bakunawa” (featuring Ouida, Han Han and June Millington)
single release (2024)
Timothée Chalamet and Monica Barbaro—“Blowin’ in the Wind”
A Complete Unknown (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (2024)
Tiny Habits—“For Sale Sign” (featuring Lizzy McAlpine)
single release (2025)
Zoë Më—“Voyage”
single release (2025)
The Marías—“Back To Me”
single release (2025)
Spacey Jane—“Whateverrrr”
If That Makes Sense (2025)
Yoon Jong-shin and Miyu Takeuchi—“왠지 그럼 안될 것 같아” (Forbidden Game)
single release (2021)
Felivand—“Where Were You”
Ties (2022)
Lusaint—“Joking”
single release (2025)
ablume—“Echo”
single release (2025)
Yoon Jong-shin and Taeyeon—“춘천가는 기차” (A Train to Chuncheon)
single release (2019)

Also on the Once Monthly

Despite trying hard not to, my latest Plaka Note, on SB19’s Simula at Wakas, ended up comparing these P-pop pioneers with the other P-pop pioneers, Bini. But I should not dwell on that. What album am I focusing on in two weeks’ time?

Finally, with Kitchie Nadal returning to the Philippines for a solo concert—the comeback bug did bite, didn’t it?—I’ll point you to my Hyperfocus essay on her heyday which I wrote last year. And yes, I pointed you to this one again on the socials just a couple of weeks ago, if you were paying attention…