Another Old Photo

taken inside my old flat.

I miss the collection of books, music and movies that filled it before it became necessary for me to move back to Korea after a lifetime in Los Angele.  But after spending a fortune to have all my artwork professionally packed and insured and shipped off to Korea, I simply ran out of budget and couldn't afford to have all the other stuff sent along, too.

The LPs were part of my father's collection, but the rest were all my own, collected over the decades.  Now when I look up the books I used to own, it's shocking how rare and expensive some of them are.  Some are long out of print and can't even be found.  I found a used copy of The Circus of Dr. Lao by Charles Finney with the famous hallucinatory illustrations by Boris Artzybasheff -- the edition I used to own -- offered for sale at AbeBooks at $600 USD.  Another edition (also used) was listed at $2000!  As for the movies, aside from the usual classics and popular favorites I had also accumulated all sorts of minor and obscure titles, artsy experimental films and cult favorites on DVD, now all but impossible to track down.  And hundreds of Korean movies.

For the longest time I had little interest in Korean culture (aside from a few favored Korean restaurants) and had no interaction with the larger Korean community in L.A. unless strictly necessary.  Then, in 2003 I came across a newly-released Korean movie called A Tale of Two Sisters (directed by Kim, Jee Woon and remade in the States in 2009 as The Uninvited), gave it a try and I was hooked!  It was beautiful, complex, scary, mysterious and bittersweet -- even the soundtrack was wonderfully poignant, and remains among my favorite compositions to this day.  My eyes were opened to a whole new world of cinema (and by extension... yes, to Korean music and drama series as well😏) and I started collecting Korean movies left and right.  And not satisfied with just watching them by myself, I started going over to my friend Evelyn's house every few weeks with a few Korean DVDs to watch with her (she was an Emmy-winning script writer;  she spent a great deal of her time watching all sorts of movies in any case, both for her work and for personal pleasure... R.I.P., Ev).  I even formed a group with local Mensa members that met downtown once a month to have dinner, walk over to my place and watch Korean movies.  Unfortunately, many of those can't be found any more, either.  I guess I'll never stop missing them.  They were a big part of my life.