Xenolithic
Wednesday, June 18, 2025
Mirrors In Strange Places
Tuesday, June 17, 2025
Monday, June 16, 2025
Streaker
Screaming across the sky, like a visual counterpart of the Stuka dive bomber's siren.
Sunday, June 15, 2025
Saturday, June 14, 2025
Cross Of Light, Cross Of Shadow
And both are equally insubstantial and fleeting.
While out walking today I spotted this shadow of a cross on a church,
Friday, June 13, 2025
I Seem To Be On A Roll Here
with the Dream theme. This is a shot taken at Yongsan ("Dragon Hill" -- pretty dramatic name, no?) subway station, modified to enhance the dreamlike aspects. Absolutely do click to expand.
I actually was divided between presenting this image straight, or upside down. Although the latter option seemed a bit too obviously "dreamy" at first, I finally decided to go with it because: the reflected view of the people "below" was just close enough to reality (despite the distortion and exaggerated color it's the human beings that most people notice first), and the de-colored "real" people at the top were less immediately noticeable, so as to cause a brief moment of disorientation and reality-doubt in the viewer, which after all is the effect I was after.
Thursday, June 12, 2025
Tuesday, June 10, 2025
Daytime Comet -- Glorious!
I set out on my daily walk this afternoon, and two blocks down from my apartment I happened to look up, and saw this:
Take away the buildings in the photo, and it's almost the exact image of Halley's Comet in a dream I once had as a young child. In the dream it glowed with extravagant glamour as it rounded the Sun, and when I woke up I tried to reproduce the image in crayon on paper, but try as I might, I could not recapture the splendor of the dream.
The cloud moved with fair speed even as I stood watching, and soon enough I was rewarded with this unforgettable sight:
I suppose you could say this cloud afforded me one more instance of a "dreamlike" image. Except that this time, it's literally true.
Monday, June 9, 2025
Some Random Dream-Like Images
But are they just "dreamlike", or could I, picking up where Ted Serios left off, have figured out a way to photograph my dreams?
Sunday, June 8, 2025
Unusual Iridescent Cloud Seen This Evening
Distinctively colored, oddly compact and well-defined -- this may well have been yet another one of those sky "amoebas" disguised as a cloud (some of its inner details actually look like organelles!). As a mass of quasi-protoplasm, it would of course have different optical properties from real clouds, and stand out as it refracts the light of the setting sun.
Saturday, June 7, 2025
A Mystery: Errant Boots
Espied this pair of fancy boots partway up a seaside cliff on that trip to the beach from a few posts ago. What could be the story behind them? They certainly don't look like they were accidentally dropped there or left behind by a forgetful tourist. And they don't look like cheap throwaways, either. Who would take the trouble to climb up there and carefully arrange them in position, only to leave them -- out of casual reach? Did the owner think they were infested with a foot fungus, or contaminated with radioactivity, or maybe carried a curse or some such? I'd love to know...
Friday, June 6, 2025
A K-drama Really Made An Impression On Me
I watched this TV series, The Sound of Magic (thank you, Netflix).

Yes, the title is a play on The Sound of Music (actually, that's the English title for the global Netflix audience; the original Korean title, directly taken from the webtoon the show is based on, is Annara Sumanara, which is a made-up incantation perhaps intended to recall the well-known Sanskrit mantra srisri mahasri susri svaha), but still, the show IS a musical and it really is about magic, and this line from one of its episodes rang true for me: "Magic isn't about making miracles, but finding them".
Related posts: magic
Thursday, June 5, 2025
After All This Time
Related post: Reminiscing Again
Wednesday, June 4, 2025
What To Do, What To Do... Pt. 2
With a jarful of cicada nymph shells, collected last summer.
I'm gonna need a bigger jar for this year's harvest.
Related post: What To Do, What To Do...
Tuesday, June 3, 2025
A Liberating Dream
One that started out like a common type of anxiety-induced nightmare, but then revealed an amazing twist that turned the narrative on its head.
This morning I dreamt that these two characters, a young man and a young woman, were being chased by a killer. They came to me looking for a place to hide, but then the killer ran up, saw me and pegged me for a target as well. I hid under some furniture but the killer found me and came after me. I ran out from under cover, and as I ran I spotted a large knife in the kitchen. I grabbed it, whirled around and faced the killer. Boy, the tables were turned fast -- he panicked and started running from me! I chased after him, finally cornering him against a window, and proceeded to hack and slice him up into little pieces -- to the great cheering and admiration of the original would-be victims. Wow, did THAT feel great!
Seen On My Daily Walk 2
"Something" about this sight made me think of a tired worker who has just finished doing his "husbandly duty" by his wife.
Monday, June 2, 2025
Maybe I'll Call This
the "Argus Tree".
[Argus Panoptes ("Argus, the all-eyes") was a giant with many eyes (a hundred of them, in some versions) in Greek mythology; he was the ideal guard, able to see in all directions and only some of the eyes closing to sleep at any time; however, after he was set to watch Io, one of philandering Zeus' many loves (disguised by Zeus as a heifer), by a jealous Hera, Zeus sent Hermes to lull him to sleep with a long boring story (or a sweet song, depending on who you read), and once all of Argus' eyes closed, Hermes hacked off his head]
Related post: "I've Got More Eyes Than You--"
Sunday, June 1, 2025
Saturday, May 31, 2025
Just Look At The Mad Gleam
Could be... an ax murderer, perhaps..? Yes, a serial ax murderer! Now old and locked away in an insane asylum, recalling his heyday with fond satisfaction.
Selected related posts: Madman Scowling; Made-Up Character 1; Made-Up Character 2; Another Aimless Made-Up Face Drawing; Bunch Of Characters In Search Of A Story; Sour Expression; Ugliness Abounds; Haven't Done One Of These For A While