Catastrophic Cloud

While editing this photo of a dramatic but innocent cloud

I accidentally color-inverted it, but I liked the result;  so I added some more effects, and now it looks like a nuclear bomb going off.  Cool!

Odd Coincidences

A few days ago, I checked the time on my smart phone (I don't wear a watch) and it was 3:33 PM.  The next day I checked the time, and it was 4:44 PM.  Then on the day after that, which was the day before yesterday, I checked the time:  it was 4:44 PM again..

While mulling over this little bit of cosmic concurrence, I was reminded of an incident that really was a whopper of a coincidence from the past.  Many years ago, back when the Tower Records music shop in Hollywood was still thriving, it was divided into two parts.  The larger store on the north side of Sunset Boulevard sold pop and rock CDs.  It was always bustling, full of hip and trendy young people (do check out what happened to me there one time).  The smaller building across Sunset dealt with classical music, and it sported a much more sedate and quiet atmosphere.

One day I visited the classical section with my mom.  It happened to be a rare day of heavy rain in Los Angeles, and the curbs were streaming with mini-rapids that overwhelmed the storm drains.  We entered the store, and almost immediately I noticed the wet spots on the ceiling, some of which were quite sizable;  it was obvious the building was in dire need of maintenance to fix the leaky roof.  And as I approached the counter with a question (I don't remember what it was) suddenly the ceiling cracked open exactly over me, a bucketful of rainwater poured down, and I was drenched.

As I stood frozen in shock, the clerk broke into a paroxysm of laughter, but quickly recovered and apologized -- however, not forgetting to add "...but that was so strange!"

Which I agreed with, of course.  It really was very funny, and the perfect aim and timing were amazing, like a Buster Keaton stunt.  How likely is something like that to happen in real life?  I think it would have made for a great deflating denouement after an epic slapstick action number in any number of comedy movies;  I can see it happening to Jack Lemon's character in "The Great Race", or maybe to Jonathan Winters after he singlehandedly demolishes a gas station with his bare hands in "It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world".

[The image below has nothing to do with the incident, but it seemed to kind of fit the bill in terms of random oddness encountered^]

EDIT (on December 3):  Early this morning I awoke spontaneously.  I checked the clock on the nightstand.  It was 4:44 AM.  4:44 for the third time?  It's as if it was always supposed to be 4:44 and the first 3:33 was a mistake, and now the repeated 4:44s are overdone attempts at "correction".  It reminds me of the Twilight Zone episode where astronauts who have made the first successful flight in a new spaceplane start to disappear one by one from people's memories and all records, until finally no such space flight has ever taken place.  Erased from reality, because it was not "supposed to happen".

RE-EDIT  (on December 23):  Late afternoon yesterday I was coming home from a photo junket.  I got off the subway, got on the shuttle that would take me home, and checked the time -- 4:44 again!  What is this, a 'straggler', late by 20 days?  What the heck.

Charles Fort would be proud.  He who once humorously suggested that when a rain of fish falls, perhaps it's in response to people's fear of famine, and when "blood" rains down it's because there are thoughts of war and violence, etc.

1. If a cosmic mind exists, it may well be the mind of an idiot.

2. If a cosmic mind exists, must it be sane? (thank you, Damon Knight)

That Glove

Six months later, it's still there on top of the awning.  It hasn't moved at all through all the rains and winds.  It is, however, looking rather the worse for wear.  The color's almost completely faded.  It's a little saddening to see the gradual deterioration of something that, at the beginning, looked like something out of a tale told by the brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Andersen.  Or -- maybe the story is still being told, and the ending is yet long in coming.

Related post: "I Found A Glove"

Another Urban Fossil

The fossil of a possible proto-canine mysteriously appears in a crosswalk.

Untitled III

The edge of the Pacific Ocean, taken many years back, from the Santa Monica bluff trail.

I miss it.

Better Choose Carefully

"Love At Sunset"?

or

"The Sun Setting On This Love"?

or

"The BacksideOther Kind Of Love"?

The Moon And Jupiter

It was so bright I thought it must be Venus, till I found out different.  Wow!

 

Halloween in Seoul

Halloween has been making steady inroad into South Korean culture over the last couple of decades.  So far though, progress has been slow and it's still pretty much a niche phenomenon, with selective adoption.  For example, you won't see children dressing up in cute/scary costumes and going trick-or-treating, and I doubt that particular Hallowe'en custom will ever make landfall here;  at least in part because when half the country's population lives in impersonal, industrially-built giant apartment complexes with coded entrance, it's just not the same as going from door to door begging for candy from familiar neighbors.

While there still is plenty of dressing-up, it's mostly for young adults, with beer and street food instead of candy.  Think of it as a kind of open-air ballo in maschera.  And here are three of the best costumes I saw in the Hongdae neighborhood, which is a major young people's hangout in Seoul.

Medieval physician in plague mask, carrying a coffin at the ready:

Creepy ghost girl with a No face on the back of her head.  I wonder if she was wearing an identical mask in front...

And of course, the Great Equalizer: