Yesterday Evening

From about five o'clock to six thirty or so yesterday, I took an aimless, longish stroll through the neighborhood, photographing whatever caught my eye.  The sky was particularly interesting.

If Something About This Sausage Bun

reminded you of Guillaume Apollinaire's The Amorous Exploits of a Young Rakehell, you may be forgiven.  It did me, too.  Anyway, it was tasty.  And filling.

Daddy-Long-Legs

Also known as "Daddy-Big-Head".

 

What Were They Thinking Of?

That is the creepiest, scariest "face" that I've ever seen on a car.  Looks like a vampire.

Different Heights, Different Clouds

 

From A Visit To

a "traditional market".  Pigs' heads, halved, de-boned and cooked.  Reminded me of my first visit to L.A.'s Grand Central Market all those years ago, back when it was actually a market, not just a bunch of gentrified eateries like it became, and *Flip Wilson ran a juice stand there.  It's where I first saw sheep's heads at a Mexican butcher shop.  They were cut in half too, but they were raw skulls, just with the skin off.  It was fairly shocking because the eyeballs were still in the skulls.

*Legendary comedian known as television's "first black superstar", Clearow "Flip" Wilson

was absolutely huge in the early 70's.  AND he owned a juice stand in downtown L.A.

Proud, Erect Shadow

seems to be mocking the limp, drooping duct.

 

Dandelion Fluff

It was several seconds before it occurred to me to take out my camera.  I was able to track it for a few shots before losing it in the sun's glare.

 

'Tis The Last Rose Of Summer

I was just walking down a busy sidewalk, and there it was.  It was undamaged.  Either it had only just been accidentally dropped, or people had been taking care to walk around it.

Sentimental me, I was instantly reminded of the lovely Irish song referenced above in the title.  Except, my first encounter with it was through a German translation of the lyrics in the opera Martha by Friedrich von Flotow.

Let me explain.  When I was a child my father's LP collection included a recording of selections from the opera, with Anneliese Rothenberger and Fritz Wunderlich in the starring roles.  I fell in love with it the very first time I listened to it, but I didn't know that this particular song was actually an already-existing song that had been borrowed into the opera with translated German lyrics (as "Letzte Rose") -- I simply assumed it was just part of the opera, composed by Flotow and cleverly presented as an Irish song as sung by "Martha", the peasant character assumed by Lady Harriet (Queen Anne's lady-in-waiting, who was herself so high-born that she had her own staff of ladies-in-waiting to wait on her!) for a lark, not realizing that she was about to break farmer Lionel's heart, who had taken her act at face value.  Only much later did I come to realize that there was actually a beautiful original Irish version of the song.

But still, I'll always remember the first line as "Letzte Rose, wie magst du so einsam hier bluehn?", because that's how I memorized it first...

Here is the relevant cut from the original recording (there have been subsequent recordings with different leads):

Face In The Sidewalk

A long time ago, when I was part of a weekly therapy group, there was a guy in the group who said he fantasized about being shut up under the sidewalk, looking up at the people unknowing walking over him without being noticed.  That's what I thought of when I came upon this face grinning up at me from the ground.  Is it a random collection of markings, or was someone punished by a witch to suffer this fate, cursed to be walked upon by the unknowing millions?  Should I be amused or horrified?

First One In A Long Time

I haven't done one of these shots since moving to Korea.

 Select related posts:  Another One Of "Those" Shots                                               Lilliputians Discover Brobdingnag                                             Perfect Timing

Don't Make Enemies

John Wick, anyone? 

Beauty V

 

Eerie Anomaly

What the hey, is this one of those things you can just chalk off to "Well, statistically, it has to happen sometimes"?

The subway train was totally empty.  At 3:40 in the afternoon!  The train should have been totally packed with early rush hour traffic.  Did I miss some public announcement discouraging travel?  I confess I don't check my phone as often as I maybe should, but...

It was really weird, like a scene from some scary movie or an episode of The Twilight Zone.

"There are lies, there are damn lies, then there are statistics"

 

Cloud Watch IV: Windy Day

In the few minutes it took for me to walk from the subway to my apartment, these streaky clouds went from this

to this curiously suggestive form
 

to this "angels flying home" motif

and finally to this

Surreal Moon... Sun?

I don't remember which.

 

An Oddly Amorous-Looking Tree

Or so it looked to me, at least.  Maybe it was just my mind that was in the gutter^

 

What The Hey

Cicada season is over.  Or so I thought.  I hadn't heard any cicadas buzzing and droning for quite a while now.  But yesterday I was surprised -- nay, a little shocked -- to see this:

Mind you, these were taken from a path that I regularly traverse on my daily walks.  I'm reasonably familiar with the trees along the way.  And these weren't there just a few days ago, I can tell you that!  Are they a different species?  Like 13-year and 17-year cicadas?  Why haven't I heard them?  Are there mute species of cicadas?  But why haven't I even seen any of these newly molted ones?  Where are they all? 

Just A Cool Image

The *recent visits to The Needle prompted me to go back one more time and take this very different shot of it a couple of days ago.

A Fortuitous Juxtaposition

Autumn rain.  Fallen leaves on the sidewalk.

Then something caught my eye, and I looked closer. 

Playing With Parallax

Newly re-painted crosswalk stripes, and new bollards.  I totally gave in to the temptation.

 

Go For It, Big Guy!

A whale hunting a shrimp.

Which reminds me of the old Korean adage, "When whales fight, the shrimp's back breaks", a self-deprecating reference to the fact that little Korea has for so long has had to bear the brunt of the fallout from the conflicts involving its much bigger neighbors, China, Russia and Japan.

Spontaneous Camouflage

Another "only with OCD" photo.  How amazing is this!  Not only matching the background in color, but to have landed just right so the color boundary exactly matches the sidewalk tiles' grout lines (I didn't touch it, honest)!  Flounders and octopuses have nothing on this cone.  I swear I sometimes feel almost like one of those autistic savants who see math or can listen to a song once and play it on the piano -- only with "environmental visuals", if that's a phrase😁

Related posts:  camouflage

Today's Worm Rescue

I was surprised to see this worm in the middle of the sidewalk, as there had been no rain for some time.  And a pretty big one, too.

It was fairly active, so I figured it was in reasonable health.  Unfortunately, it didn't look like there was any reliably deep soil in the immediate area -- I couldn't see where the worm would have come from -- so all I could do was place it in the thin cover of earth over the stones by the side of the path.  At least there was some plant cover, so maybe it would have been able to burrow in.  On the other hand, after I put it down it wouldn't move, so I don't know...

Number of worms rescued(...):  81