Christmas Every Day!

Beauty shop proudly advertises:

Hair coloring

Bouncy volume

Collagen treatment

Scalp health

Follicle nourishment

and...

Dog grooming

Objectified Meaninglessness

I came across this photo while perusing an old folder.  Remembering that I considered posting it at one point, I half-convinced myself that I must have, but after checking past posts under a bunch of keywords I decided I never did.

What struck me at the time was the stand-out redness of the chair and the fire extinguishers in an otherwise dull, colorless alley.  That, and of course, the fact the chair was crammed upside-down between the ladder and the wall.  I "credit" my OCD for forcing me to glean out all sorts of relationships between things that don't normally have anything to do with each other -- one might say it's something along the lines of, seeing meaningfulness in an acausal synchronicity -- and the meaning I see here is its own opposite;  a visual metaphore for meaninglessness.

Consider:  the function of a chair is to provide a stable platform as it rests on a floor or on the ground -- it loses its meaning when, absurdly, it has been turned upside down several feet off the ground.  Likewise, the four fire extinguishers huddled under it behind the ladder seem almost as if they had been deliberately stowed away in a troublesome location out in an alley, when they should be in readily accessible spots indoors.  I note also that the ladder has been rendered unfunctional by having a metal plate spot-welded in its bottom portion.

The chair, the fire extinguishers and the ladder -- all three elements here have been deprived of meaning individually, but ironically that is what invests them with a collective, desultory meaning of self-abnegation.

More could be said, but perhaps a rare, rational measure of self-restraint is called for here.

Defeated

After two weeks of a bad cold.

Baying Dog

 

Compare:  Heliophagous Celestial Dog

The Horns Of The Moon

 

Poor Man's Trove

My very modest collection of dorje/vajra and phurba.  Used to have a few more, but I've given them away.

You're (Un)Welcome, Please

"Please do not knock.  Please do not enter"

Errant Smiley Face

I guess this could be interpreted in either of two diametrically opposed ways, depending on your mood.

 

"Going Somewhere?"

"Uh-uh, go back and put out that fire first!"

"It's All A Matter Of Perspective",

said, M.C. Escher.  Maybe. 

Some Good Ol' Times

were had then, back in my grad school days...^

 

Just An Impressive Sunset

A fairly unusual-looking one.

Creepy Snowman

With a pair of snow ducklings on his head.

If it were me, I would have spaced those mini-duckies wider apart, so that they would look like horns.  As it is, they are rather reminding me of rodent teeth.  Not unlike the fangs of Nosferatu the vampire in the silent movie classic (1922) as played by Max Schreck

and by Klaus Kinski in the 1979 remake,

as opposed to the way cool fangs of Christopher Lee as Dracula in the famous Hammer Horror series.

Certainly, Nosferatu's fangs were definitely more realistically (if you can call vampires realistic, that is) placed for efficient puncturing of jugulars, but they also made him look like an undead nerd with unhappy memories of high school gym class.

MIraculous Stairs

Legend has it that if a severely overweight man or woman can make their way up to the top of these stairs, their wish to become slim would be granted.

I don't know... it seems to me you'd have to be pretty lean to begin with, to make it even halfway.

Could've Been A Lot Worse

I woke up in the middle of the night.  It was completely dark and I was disoriented, so I started to grope my way around and ended up running into a sculpture (yes, I've got sculpture pieces in my bedroom -- I really need a bigger place), fell and banged my forehead against furniture.

At that, I suppose I should be grateful that it wasn't my nose or (heaven forfend!) my eye.

Which reminds me, my friend Evelyn (rest in peace, friend) once said something about me losing an eye somehow (don't remember what started that macabre line of thought) and going around wearing a cool black eye patch like a pirate.  I said that would be cool, except for the fact that I would then be living in constant dread of losing the other one, too (that's what actually happened to a blind singer in Korea:  he was born with perfectly normal eyes, but as a child he lost an eye in an accident, then a few years later he lost the other eye in a separate accident -- talk about misfortunate).

Now I've got a night light.

Parallel Moon

 

A Card From An Imaginary Deck

 

Wet Cormorant

I'm into the fourth day of this cold.  Still coughing and hacking, still blowing my nose every few minutes, but at least I've taken my first shower in three days.  So obviously these images shot at the Han river weren't taken today or even very recently.  I just thought they were interesting. Mildly amusing, even.

Well Prepared

 

Evidence Of Crime?

Another day, another alley shot, but this one was rather more disconcerting than usual.  It looked like someone had tried to break into this room.

Headache

Couple days ago I was out walking and I noticed that even though I hadn't walked nearly as much as I usually do, yet I was feeling very tired and achy.  I was also sneezing now and then.  I thought it was maybe the alcohol I'd drunk the previous night, and thought no more of it once I got back home.  Then yesterday I woke up with the full repertoire:  coughing, fever, hoarse voice, nose running like a faucet, and finally it dawned on me that I'd come down with a cold ("How like a man"^^).  I drank some hot tea, then went back to bed and slept a few more hours.  I woke up past noon, drank some more hot tea, then I threw on the big full-length coat over the clothes I'd slept in, went down to the little pharmacy in the complex and bought the same medication I'd used the last time I was sick.  I took the medicine, went back to bed and slept some more.  And now, past midnight (not sleepy any more, I've slept the sleep out of me), I'm feeling a headache coming on, on top of everything else.

Good thing I took this shot days before and saved it.

What The Sky Might Look Like

a few billion years from now.  Astronomers say that while our Sun falls short of the critical mass to go nova, we're still doomed anyway (supposing we're still living on earth);  as the Sun runs out of hydrogen fuel and starts to burn helium, its energy output will dramatically increase and it will expand into a red giant until it swallows up Mercury, Venus and possibily Earth, before it exhausts the helium fuel too and shrinks down into a white dwarf in its senescence.  If there are any living creatures left on earth during the red giant phase, this is what they might see when they look up (I know, there wouldn't be any clouds then;  but I had to work with what I had -- at least they add some drama^^).

Interior With Staircase

A very interestingly "composed" interior shot, taken from the exterior.  Makes me think of early 20th century art scene, particularly Russian Suprematism.

 

Just Odd

Not a half-moon, but a half-sun!  And together with that cloud the whole scene looks for all the world like Sun and cloud were pushing and flattening themselves out against each other.  Makes me think of bulls locking horns and testing each other's strength.  Or perhaps "Irresistible force meets immovable object".

One of the oddest sights I've caught on camera in some time.

Off With His Head!

Or maybe "Headfirst".  The Columbidae equivalent of Dumpster Diving?  Or maybe the pigeon perceived my approach as threatening, and is doing what ostriches supposedly do when feeling threatened.  Anyway, I have to say I don't recall seeing pigeons do that before -- but I'm sure pigeons do a lot of things I haven't yet seen them do.  In any case, this sort of thing can only help to cement their image in some circles as "rats on the wing".  I know it sounds harsh, but really...