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.
Friday, February 28, 2025
Like An Old Postcard
Thursday, February 27, 2025
A Pair Of Anglerfish
at a fishmonger's stall. I remember reading that the reason only female anglerfish seem to ever be caught is that male anglerfish are tiny compared to females, and when a male encounters a female he will bite onto her body and become fused with her, gradually losing most of his own body until he becomes a parasite that consists of nothing but his sexual organs.
I remember feeling quite repelled and even a little scared as I read that article. What does a male anglerfish feel as he undergoes this process of de-evolution? Does he stay conscious even as he loses his sight and his brain begins to be absorbed into his mate's body? What must that be like, literally "losing his mind" as his brain dissolves away? Doesn't it seem a little bit like being buried alive, without actually being buried? What a grotesque way of propagating a species, like something out of a horror movie.
Wednesday, February 26, 2025
Tuesday, February 25, 2025
Yet Another Wizard's Laboratory
It's true! Seoul really must be some kind of wizards' hub -- I'm sure this is yet another of their workshops. I was just randomly ambling along on a postprandial stroll when I happened across a rundown old building in an alley. I thought maybe I could get a photo out of it and took a peek inside -- and look! That sinister red glow pouring out of the doorway -- whatever's going on in there, it must be a particularly powerful and dangerous kind of magic. It even looks like something preternaturally hot was dragged down the stairs (or is it up the stairs? I can't tell), leaving a trail of burned flooring behind. I got out immediately after taking this shot. Smartest thing I ever did.
Related post: Another Wizard's Workshop
Monday, February 24, 2025
Like Ships Passing In The Night
A crow caught mid-flight, climbing toward the treetops, and far in the background, a cloud rising in the opposite direction, a faint but unmistakable echo of the fairy maidens in the folktale I referenced near the very beginning of this blog.
They never knew of each other's existence, but I know both.
Related post: I-Witness: 2 Angels
Sunday, February 23, 2025
Another Random Face
At 4:50 AM.
I think it looks kind of Slavic (Hello, Knyaz Igor, your highness could use a moustache) -- despite being the opposite of the "broad-faced" stereotype.
I don't know. Is it the hour? Maybe I just need to go to bed.
Saturday, February 22, 2025
Pig Heads
At a butcher's in YeongDeungPo Market. Livid from being thoroughly bled and washed, and dried out somewhat by exposure to air, they seemed almost translucent.
Friday, February 21, 2025
Thursday, February 20, 2025
Wednesday, February 19, 2025
Tuesday, February 18, 2025
Sunday, February 16, 2025
Wheel Of Fortune
This requires a bit of a mental leap.
From
"Going up or coming down, it's hard both ways"
and
"Well, actually it's way easier coming down -- only you'll hurt more"
to
*O fortuna
velut luna
statu variabilis...
*Quoted from 'Fortuna, imperatrix mundi' (Fortune, empress of the world) from the collection of poems known as 'Carmina Burana'. It has been set to music by Carl Orff. Here is the cover of the score.
Saturday, February 15, 2025
My "Phone Doodles"
have finally revealed themselves to be what they always have been in truth... maps of Hell!
All that time I spent absently graffito-ing mazes -- and even mentally constructing them in my imagination -- I was actually recreating sections of the one maze you can never escape. No need for a Minotaur; you'll just be wandering its claustrophobic corridors forever, eternally thwarted at every turn.
Related posts: More Musings On Hell; Custom-Made Hells
Friday, February 14, 2025
A Recent Jaunt To An Exhibition Of Pulitzer-Winning Photographs
inspired this documentary-style look back to March 2018. I was still living in downtown L.A., and this anti-gun protest passed right under my 6th-floor window. It was probably the biggest, densest, most massive crowd I have ever seen in person.
Wednesday, February 12, 2025
Tuesday, February 11, 2025
Monday, February 10, 2025
Sunday, February 9, 2025
Thursday, February 6, 2025
Wednesday, February 5, 2025
Tuesday, February 4, 2025
Yet Another Cosmic Monster
laughingly chases a desperately fleeing Sun in the evening sky, doubtless intending to swallow him and cause an eclipse.
Related post: Fliegende Hexe
Monday, February 3, 2025
Another Errant Jacket
A little while back (January 8) I posted a couple of images of a jacket I found resting on the road, just randomly lying there as if dropped by an absentminded owner. And remarked on the resemblance its silhouette bore to a cat lying on its side. Well, today I happened to be cutting across a neighborhood parking lot on the way home when I sighted this child's jacket on the sidewalk. Later, while checking out its images at home, I was struck by its resemblance to a dog lying prone. Especially a Schnauzer or one of those boxy-headed Terrier dogs.
Two jackets randomly dropped on the pavement, found with the space of a month. Already unusual enough -- but then it's first a cat, then a dog. Cat and dog. Makes me think of the idiom "Raining cats and dogs". Wonder if this is some Supreme Mind's way of letting me know that we're in for some really heavy rains this year? Or just me being a solipsist? Maybe.
Related post: Errant Jacket
Sunday, February 2, 2025
Sky Fish Nibbling
Reminds me of ocean sunfish, except this one doesn't have the distinctive dorsal and anal fins. Mayhap the fluid-resistance differential of air and water is responsible?