I watched this series "The Sound of Magic" (yes, I know the title is a play on "The Sound of Music", 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".
As I've said before, magic really is where you find it (hey, maybe the producers of this show read my blog).
Related posts: magic
Related post: Reminiscing Again
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...
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!
"Something" about this sight made me think of a tired worker who has just finished doing his "husbandly duty" by his wife.
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--"
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
After a long hiatus, I just randomly started drawing a face and finished it just now in a couple of minutes. As is usually the case, I started out without any particular ideas in mind as to what sort of expression it should bear, other than "big round eyes". Now it reminds me of the preta. Oh boy.
[In Buddhist cosmology the preta are the unfortunate beings who are reincarnated -- possibly from prior lives as human beings -- into a life of unrequited desire and longing, typically for nourishment (hence their other name of "hungry ghosts"), but more broadly, the objects of their desire can be anything, including such repellent things as corpses and feces]
Found a 100 Korean won coin on the subway stairs yesterday.
Now I'm 7 cents richer.
Number of worms rescued so far: 76
Yesterday the weather forecast predicted light rain for today, but if rain there actually was, it must have been very light and taken place very early in the morning hours because by the time I got up (admittedly late) there was no trace of it. I had decided to go and buy art supplies today so I went down to the subway station and took the train to the HongDae neighborhood; it should have been a reasonably short trip, but whaddayaknow, I'd forgotten that this particular subway line splits partway down and the two branches lead to widely divergent areas -- and I only belatedly realized that I'd boarded the wrong train. So I got off at the next stop -- to a station that was completely empty and actually had a desolate feel about it (decidedly rare in Seoul; if tumbleweeds grew in Korea they would have been rolling over the tracks to a melancholy harmonica tune playing in the background), and only after consulting the subway map on my phone did I realize that, by an odd coincidence, this station bore the same name as another, very busy station in central Seoul and I had mistaken this little-used and underserved station in the suburbs for that other station. After over an hour the train finally came and took me back to the diverging point, where I gratefully boarded the right train that took me to HongDae. All in all, the (would-be)simple trip took over three and a half mortal Irish hours.
O.K., now for the main part of the story. So I came home, and as I trudged up the pathway toward my apartment I encountered an unusual sight ahead: a large earthworm (one of the extra-large kind they've got here in Korea) on the path, slowly and laboriously crawling along the cement surface. It was obviously exhausted, and worse, it was dangerously exposed there in the middle of the paved path -- from both the desiccating air and the humans walking by -- and I didn't know how it came to be there, as there was no sign of recent sprinkler activity, and yet its "head" was covered with muddy soil, but the rest of its body was quite naked. But in any case, my first thought was to moisten its drying-out body; fortunately, this was just steps from the strip mall in the apartment complex, so I picked it up (unlike last time, I managed to overcome a certain amount of aversion to do this, as this worm was extra large as I said), nestled it in my cupped hands and hurried over to the restroom in the strip mall, where I gave it a (probably welcome) splash of water from the faucet. The worm actually reacted fairly vigorously, writhing and partly crawling up my hand, which was a positive sign of reserve strength. Then I came back to the spot where I picked it up and looked around for a place to return it to the soil. A lady came by just then, and seeing the little passenger in my hands, she asked me -- without a trace of revulsion -- what "that thing" was. I told her it was an earthworm, and she said "Ah, you're saving the worm!", then she asked where I'd caught it, bless her! I told her I just happened to find it there on the pathway, and she smiled and went on her way.
The surface of the flowerbed by the path looked fairly dry, but as I dug a little shallow hole with my finger I reached wet soil underneath, so I let the worm down in it and partly covered it up with debris. I hope it was able to dig its way back in.
Related post: Worm Rescue Update
Came across this pretty teahouse while wending my way through the back lanes of the older neighborhoods in central Seoul.
The big sign in the restaurant parking lot says "Hœ" (raw beef or fish -- the Korean counterpart of Japan's sashimi), so perhaps the clock is there to tell customers c'mon in, you're already late to dinner -- except this clock seems to have broken down.
The mirror says "If you're looking good, you're drunk" (note the twisty squiggly font). Seen outside a tavern in a Seoul alley.
The name of the joint is at the bottom and is translatable as "The Hornblower Jackass" -- hence the donkey drinking from the bottle.
And it isn't just a random piece of junk thrown out in a back alley; it actually keeps correct time!
Related posts: The Oddest Place To Put A Clock; Unexpected And Unforgettable
While taking a shower earlier, I suddenly thought of that sad song whose lyrics include the phrases "...felt that old familiar pain" and "...the snow turned into rain". I was pretty sure it was by Dan Fogelberg, but decided to look it up later (I did, and it was). Then by the 80's association I started to muse about the song with the words "Maybe we're near the end" (turned out to be a case of the old mondegreens -- it's "Baby we're near the end"), but I couldn't think of the singer's name. I knew he was big in the 70's and 80's, and I could see him in my mind's eye, performing the song on video, but his name escaped me. Then, after a few wet and sudsy moments it partially came to me: Kenny ____. I still couldn't recall his last name -- but I felt that it had something to do with trees. Kenny Wood? Kenny Trunk? Kenny Branch? Then came Kenny Log... and of course, Kenny Loggins! Hah!
I've read somewhere that as a person grows older and mental faculties begin to deteriorate, one of the first things to go is a memory for nouns, including names. Well, I've always been Very forgetful of names and faces anyway, so no worries there (another Hah! but with more self-deprecatory irony^) -- there have actually been embarrassing occasions in the past when someone greeted me in the street and I couldn't remember who they were.
Still, sometimes I worry just a tiny bit that, at some far-off point in the future, the day may come when I won't be able to tell the difference between this:
and this:
EDIT: Why was I able to remember that Loggins' name had something to do with trees (not even logging specifically, remember -- it wasn't a case of "it sounded like..."), but not the name itself? Or more generally, why is it that we remember mnemonic devices for specific things, but not the things themselves? I've always had trouble recalling the word "mulberry", but ever since I linked it with the Dr. Seuss classic "And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street", it became easier to remember. Why would that be? Why remember to remember the story, but not the word in the title of the story? Also with the word "infantry"; it became easier to remember it once I started to link it to "babies". And I would not be able to remember all the groupings of taxonomy without "Drunk Kings Play Cards On Fat Girls' Stomachs" (Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species). O.K., so that last one is a sentence that makes sense, so it's easy to remember (that seems to be the prevailing opinion on the matter, which makes sense), but what about vague feelings like "I think it had something to do with ___"? Sylvan Muldoon mentioned in his classic of spiritualist literature The Projection of the Astral Body that every time he passed a certain spot near his house he would be reminded of a circus. He didn't know why, it just happened to him. There must have been some sensory link that connected that spot to the memory of a circus that he'd seen in the past; and surely the vague feeling of "it had something to do with..." must have something similar at work, even if we cannot specifically identify it.
Then this was a startling shout. I almost stepped on it on the trail and took a shocked step back, thinking it was the decaying, denuded carcass of some animal.
I very rarely see earthworms these days. Back in SoCal it was pretty much a certainty that after (or during) a rain you'd encounter a worm or five on the sidewalk, but for some reason here in Korea worms are a rarity, at least in the city, and when you do come across them they must be different species because some of them are huge compared to the ones in the U.S. Today we had some light rain in the morning, and I thought that was it, but then in the afternoon it began to rain again, and soon it turned into a heavy downpour, complete with thunder and lightning worthy of the summer monsoons. Well, I happen to love rain -- the heavier the better -- so I broke out my underused raincoat, put on the wide-brimmed safari hat and the trusty old wellingtons and set out. And on the way out I came upon a worm crawling down the sidewalk. It was one of the bigger ones and I was actually a little scared to pick it up with my fingers -- it was almost like a tiny snake, plus slimy and slippery -- so I used a twig to pick it up and move it to the verge. The soil was wet and softened from the rain so I think it would have made it home O.K.
Then on the way back I encountered another worm on the sidewalk -- a smaller one this time -- and when I picked it up it didn't put up any resistance so it must have been exhausted. I put it down on the soil and covered it up with some plant debris. I hope it was able to dig its way back in.
Number of worms rescued: 75
Give a man with obsessive-compulsive disorder a camera, and this is what he shoots.
With pinstripes.
I keep coming across all kinds of "errant" items everywhere, but I guess finding a discarded winning lottery ticket is too much to hope for.
Related posts: Errant
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