Or alternatively, Playing Coy.
Just an amusing photo of what was my favorite beverage for a time, found in an old folder.
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 Angeles. 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.
Many of 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 lesser-known and obscure titles, artsy experimental films and cult favorites on DVD, now all but impossible to track down. And hundreds of older Korean movies, also no longer available.
Speaking of which, 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. Some of those movies were hard-to-find small productions and simply can't be found any more, whether online or as DVD. I guess I'll never stop missing them. They were a big part of my life.
Related post: Reminiscing Again
An image that brings back a wistful flurry of emotions. It takes me back to a time, many many years ago, when I was just an innocent little... brat.
I thought I'd take this slightly strange image and add to its mystery by making it look like a time-worn, faded old print photo from several decades back. I think it works -- perhaps even a bit too well; now, when I look at it I feel a vague sense of nostalgia, with a tinge of sadness. It reminds me of the time when my mother showed me how she'd kept all my old school tests in a box in the attic, the old newsprint sheets all yellowed and crackly and just about falling apart. I miss you, mom.
I visited SeongSu yesterday. It's known as the "Brooklyn" of Seoul, with lots of old factories and other industrial/commercial buildings converted and gentrified to cafes, galleries and fashion houses mostly catering to the hip young set. True to that image, in the central area every lane and alley was filled with well-dressed young crowds (which presented problems for moi, who don't generally like to include people in shots -- I often had to wait long minutes for even a relative lull in the crowd, till I just gave up) merrily chattering away and ambling along to the next hip joint to patronize.
Behind the scenes though, I espied signs of an older community that used to occupy the neighborhood -- it was once known as a shoe manufacturing hub of the city. Whether mass-manufactured trainers or expensive hand-crafted boots, there were shops and factories producing them. And squeezed in among the fancy new shops were relicts from those bygone days, having resisted the wave of change -- or been left out of it. And sculptures honoring the old tradition could be found here and there. All in all, it was a somewhat wistful-making trip.
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So said someone who was born in Seoul, moved to the US as a child, grew up in Los Angeles, then after a lifetime there came back to Seoul and now lives as an American expatriate...
Related posts: As Below, So Above II; Like A Character In A Cheesy Children's Book Churned Out By A Hack Writer In Two Hours
Every so often, I get into this mood where I reflect over my past life as an Angeleno and contemplate whether or not I made the right decision after all in moving back to Korea after a lifetime lived in Los Angeles. For the second time in my life I'm a foreigner in a new country -- except in this case I'm back in my native land -- which has changed beyond recognition.
This shot was taken from the second story window of a slightly dive-y joint called "L.A. Taco", run by guys who also used to live in L.A. The food isn't the best I've ever had, and the all-day drizzle already had me in a broody state of mind, but I guess you gotta cut the owners some slack -- after all, they're Koreans making Mexican street food that they learned about in America.
I took this photo this afternoon in the Hong'ik University neighborhood (the origin of the name Hongdae). When I looked at the downloaded image I was immediately struck by its visual similarity to another shot that I took a few years ago (check the reference below). But that earlier image was quite different in feel; it was intended to exploit the ominous, dystopian anxiety of being alone in the midst of an anomalously empty urban environment (wow, I so can wax poetic sometimes), but this new image was definitely in a different category. So I decided to emphasize that difference by modifying it with various editing tools, running it through filters, etc. The result is a page out of an imaginary picture book dedicated to nostalgia, longing, and faded memories that will die with me.
Before it closed its doors a month or so ago, I used to pass by this kindergarten almost every day. I never paid it much attention; it was just another built-in facility for the convenience of the residents of my apartment complex, like the pharmacy, the Taekwondo dojang, the piano studio and the ice cream shop.
On one particular night, though, while making my way back from the convenience store with my beer purchase, my eyes took in this sight -- and I was transfixed.
The gate, the lights, the full Moon, and the ginkgo leaves arching above, all had conspired to create a magical sight -- reminiscent of some enchanted castle from a fairy tale that I've never read but can almost remember.
One from the window of my old loft in downtown Los Angeles, and another from the roof of the building. It was situated just about square in the middle between the ritzy postmodern combined-use buildings to the west, the mission district/aka skid row to the east, the imposing government buildings to the north and the industrial warehouses to the south. The building was 12 stories, almost a century old, and it was largely favored by the hip younger set that was sort of faux-yuppy, sort of maybe not. There weren't enough parking spaces down in the basement to accommodate all the tenants' cars, so there was no assigned parking; instead there were valets whose job it was to juggle the cars around as spaces became available as residents went out and came in. But anyway, living right across Hill Street from Pershing Square (formerly notorious as a gay hangout), I was used to seeing considerable spillover population from skid row, which was just some blocks away.
And it's true, once you step far enough away -- or as I like to call it, "taking the God's-eye point of view" -- what at first looked like ugly tragedy turns out to be a beautiful dramedy.
Long ago, I posted this entry about an "oddly even" parallelogram cloud and how, months later, I found the hole it had left behind in the mother cloud when it broke free to roam about on its own. And yesterday, I found that the mother cloud had followed me. All the way from Los Angeles to Seoul. Obviously, it still has not been able to find its rogue child after all this time. Perhaps it thought it might gain some clues as to the whereabouts of its wayward child by following me, the one who originally found it.
The edge of the Pacific Ocean, taken many years back, from the Santa Monica bluff trail.
I miss it.
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I was just ascending the steps to the lobby when I caught sight of this shadow of myself, created by some indirect source behind me.
It's another one of those images that mysteriously put me in a wistful and somewhat melancholy frame of mind.
Well, perhaps in this case I can venture a guess as to one possible reason: the backwards ballcap, the t-shirt, the knee shorts and the silhouette lacking features -- all conspired to erase age and make my shadow-self appear like the kid I have not been in many, many years. Kind of like Miyazaki's "Howl's Moving Castle" in reverse. But unlike the title of this post, I can never go home again.
FOR SOMETHING THAT NEVER WAS
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