Happy New Year.

I figured I would do my Happy Holidays here in a New Years post. To start the new year right, I thought I would give some free promotion to a very worth website, dedicated to addressing the problem of hunger. Really, the worthwhile things in life would never come about if we spent all our time worrying about where our next meal was coming from. For all those Da Vinci's, Einsteins, Jordans, Gilroys, Duchamps, Rushdies who will never see the light of day because they struggle to meet the bare necessities of life: food, clothing, and shelter, this post goes out to you.

Please click on this link to make money for the hungry. If you don't know how it works, there's more information on the site. For every click they get, they make an amount of money which goes towards feeding the hungry. If you think this is a scam, feel free to look it up on Snopes.

www.thehungersite.com

This is my friend Jae-Yung. I went to visit him in Jinju on the weekend, and he took me to see Jinju Castle. Apparently during one of the many Japanese incursions into the Korean Peninsula, a woman martyred herself by dancing for one of the Japanese generals, and then embracing him with interlocking rings on all her fingers. Once she had trapped him, she jumped off the cliff into the Nam river and killed both of them. Jinju castle was a resort for Korean generals and the aristocracy. There they enjoyed feasts and entertainment. The second picture is a picture of Jinju castle after the sun went down. After going to the castle and shopping, he took me out for baked eel, the specialty food in Jinju. I even tried eel bile, mixed with soju, the sweet potato liquor that is so popular here. It's supposed to be very good for your health. The eel was delicious, but I was a little indifferent to the bile.

If you're reading this, Jae-yung: thank you for a wonderful time. You are always welcome at my house.

The Ran-domicile

Well, this photo is a little off-season. It was taken in September. I decided it would be a good idea to go to the DMZ, the border between North and South Korea on my upcoming vacation. Should be eye-opening like Le Chien Andalou.

The Kyoto Protocol

I had to walklimb a mountain
to right this poem. here in beautiful
hangook, smog settles in valleys
where the suicidal species congregates
and lives in high-rises and billboards;
so here I am, trying to find some clean
air, a piece of mind
above
the love/hate relationship I harbour
for my own caucasian male ego. The people
here speak to me and I can understand
little of what they say. Their faces
say more -- kind and generous, have what I have.
Busan stretches its limbs below, encircling
its own heights that reach
for the sky
like a woman's breasts when she's on
her back, and there's nothing
sexual about that right now; I'm gay
for chrissake! For Christ's (and other's)
sakes I crossed the burden
of my being in a ferry named atomic.
For strictly exercising her lungs,
a woman cries out and magpies call back,
looking
for leftovers flung over the shoulder
of a kind and generous "have what I have"
face that quenched my thirst
with a persimmon.

What is it about heights that makes
people delight
in shouting, overlooking the harbour
where thousands board high-speed trains
with hand-bills and church congregations
sing suicidal hymns next
door to buddhist monks sneaking
into a tavern to quaff a drink, dripping
with the memory of incense.

Speak to me,
people hear!
of what they say I can understand
little.
And redundant,
recursive
limbs
stretch back behind the sky,
reaching for the atomic ferry.
Tinker bell,
a mountain named desire
maintained as a molehill,

echoing.

News, sewn with barbed wire...

Apparently, that sleep thing that I mentioned a few posts back was related more to a sickness (tonsilitis) than anything else. I had a bad fever, went to the hospital the next day, and my boss called me and urged me to go back to work because there are two illegals at the hagwan, who are missing that week due to the visit of some or other inspector. He told me to come back to work when I had an IV stuck in my arm. Between that and the "Stop playing games" and "make it more fun, the kids are getting bored" I don't know what's what.

I felt like crap again today: nausea all day, although it got better towards the end of the day. Plus the students of one class were lying through their teeth about an assignment that was due today and none of them did it. "Teacher, you didn't tell us it was due today." I told every single one of them at least three times: more likely five. Ok, if you're going to lie, at least make it plausible. Scratch that! At least make it interesting. Then, to try to make me feel like a "filthy foreigner" They touched my hair with a kleenex and spent two minutes making grossed out faces and doing their best not to touch it. Do I ever feel appreciated!

Thank goodness even crappy days come to an end.

WTF?!

I found this sign semiotically confusing, considering potheads have a reputation for poor hygiene and Metrosexuals have hyperactively good hygiene. Also, what does pot have to do with Ireland besides the colour green?

Hello Whoever-you-are!

God bless your heart! I see you've been following my handiwork very well, and it feels good to know that someone is interested enough in the hard work I put into my blog and my music site (www.zebox.com/treevortex) to log onto both many times and loiter around for so long. I feel appreciated. Feel free to leave a comment, I don't bite! I will even respond in kind. Yes, I'm talking to you, inktomisearch person! You there, in Sunnyvale, California. This blog's for you!

And to my other loyal readers in the Toronto area: don't feel left out! I will dedicate one to you soon...

Here's a poem

The newspapers are all adrip with transparent ink
ghost words, remedy for the bored mind to rail against
bottled up, the pressure of a jobless space in the day planner
looks like a neck when you draw it on paper, cross-hatched
eggs rolling down the nape of breakfast, ruminating,
like a car idling, time waiting in line, what happens when we blink?

Everywhere people say with their eyes watch out or don't blink
you might miss something, a get-rich quick ticket with fresh ink
security guards, on the graveyard shift, in front of screens ruminating
stone still with drooping eyelids, a vagrant outside pitched against
the marbled edifice, steel enveloped glass, people hatched
direct into the hurry, a restless current, the vision of a city planner.

In a park, tuxedoed men rock on heels, relief sighs escape a wedding planner
rings pop out of boxes, held aloft for a crowd to see, minerals blink
and flash in sunlight, hands shake, arms clasp across backs, hatched
from stone-age burials, plant pigments, the smell of octopus ink.
Jet through the streams, downloadable desires set against
burgundy blades, trundled over flesh, eyes in the mirror ruminating.

Instinct still polished and stainless steel smooth, feet ruminating
the get up and go that got up and went, rending the event planner,
tragedies personal but outed, in the end sung, but to swim against
the tide, you need a diet of basso profundo, no ovation, just a blink
stage fright, flights from predators, camouflage covers the ink
on a newspapers' fine print that never made it to print, hatched

like a virus from its entanglement with the strands that hatched
its fight against the life that gave it life, walls are ruminating,
wailing with sewn together lips, criss-crossed with tattoo ink
hands tied with umbilical cords, no one is a birth planner
down to final details, with details so final, no cries are heard, no blink
is seen, face pressed against glass, against the bed, just against.

It all pushes back, doesn't it? If it was as simple as for or against.
An ostrich sticks its neck out, no sand in sight, even though it just hatched.
If I could learn from these words, it might make quiet sense when I blink.
Head perched on an end of the world railing, thoughts themselves ruminating,
my mind has a mind of its own, its ownership is a planner.
Can we make the needed leap, no faith involved, from pixel to ink?

So when you ask what I'm doing next Tuesday, I'll say ruminating.
If payday comes my way, I'll become a vacation planner.
Eyes closed while walking, I forgot to look in your face and blink.
Storm tossed branches, settled
tabletop splintered and angled,
the home seems less a home than an
eviscerated body.

The Terrorism of Circumstance

My other favourite work at the Busan Bienniale was this weather balloon kept afloat by a fan blowing air upwards. It had a radio signal that broadcast through about twenty speakers arranged in a circle around the room. The radio signal was picked up on an amplifier through some feedback mechanism that varied the sound it made as the balloon moved around in the room and changed its distance from the amplifier. The sounds produced were very trancy: reminiscent of a cross between tibetan chanting and cicada song.

Unfortunately, as I was watching and listening, the balloon and its attached radio collided with the fan cage. The sound became very tinny, high-pitched, and loud, and then faded away totally. One of the bienniale staff soon appeared and looked at me, and I just shrugged my shoulders like I didn't know what caused the mishap (which was true). I guess I was lucky. They could have construed that I somehow screwed with the installation. Whew!

Busan Bienniale

I finally made it to the Busan Bienniale a couple weekends ago. It leaned fairly heavily towards video and installation art. I have this minor grudge against video art, as so much of it totally disregards the way people receive art in a gallery. Let's face it, even if you're a top-notch artist, it will be difficult to make someone stay in the same place in a gallery for very long. I think video artists should keep this in mind, and compose accordingly so people can get the "gist" of your video from any 2 or so minute fragment. Mind you, this only applies to video art displayed at large exhibitions like bienniales.

Regardless, there was a couple good video installations. This was one of them. On the one side, an outside corner that made the projection surface look like a glowing cube, various deserted architecturally inflected images dissolved in and out. As you walked around the cube, however, the inside corner on the other side revealed that it was not a cube at all, but merely two fairly flat surfaces intersecting on a perpindicular plane.

The inside plane depicted an avalanche in slow motion, engulfing everything in its path, including a road, miniturized by the scale of the mountains and the avalanche, and eventually engulfing the whole screen. The way this piece conveyed the awesome natural power (that can be both beautiful and destructive) as the architecturality of the box was absolutely brilliant. The domestic sublime, you might call it.

My other favourite work was a sound installation which I will explain more in a subsequent blog.

Things are getting tense here...

Or not... One morning, when I woke up, I heard an air raid siren. Then, as I was walking to school, I heard fighter jets. But the Koreans will blast fireworks and party for the scantest reason, including the current Chrysanthemum Festival. Even though the South has quickly followed the North into 1000 km missile range capability, they still have time to celebrate flowers. Thank goodness for smelling the roses, er, I mean, Chrysanthemums!

Is your Sex Sexy Enough?

If not, maybe you need one of these! I went to this motel in Busan, and there was this thing that looked like an exercise machine, but it turned out to be a Sex Machine. Where's a James Brown CD when you need it?

ISP tracking RULES...

I found out that someone from Tokyo, who works for Japan's largest internet service provider read my blog for fifteen hours! I guess they read the whole damn thing!

American Spies.

Maybe I've been watching too many Hitchcock movies, but I get the uneasy feeling that there are American Spies aplenty here in South Korea. I think I ran into one of them last weekend. The evil is palpable.

Marnie.

So I watched Marnie last week. It launched into my "best five" ever movies rather quickly, although when I revisit it in my memory it might be hampered by its weak link: Sean Connery's accent slipping in and out of his Scottish brogue. No one can match Hitchcock for the psychological depth of his characters (except for Bergman in his film Persona). He also has the distinction of making a propaganda film that depicts the villain as still human (Lifeboat). Not a common characteristic of propaganda films, it is yet ultimately more convincing to show the humanity of the enemy. It's also preventative medicine against the very worst atrocities, or do our animal instincts drive out the reasoning beast within, regardless?

Mail Art

My sister is an artist, and we are collaborating on a mail art project. Here's a photo of my fragments-in-process. I'm excited.

Surf's Up!

There are surfers in Korea! Here is one of them cutting a nice line at Haeundae Beach in Pusan. Coming from Canada, I'm pleasantly surprised by the warmth here. Back home it is 6 degrees Celsius, but here it is still above 20 degrees Celsius every day.

North Korea blew up a nuke!

So if bombs are ever dropped, I hope I'm at ground zero and instantly vapourized rather than being caught in a fallout zone. That said, kids rule and above is a concrete example of why they rule.

The Down-low lowdown on Ginseng

I finally decided to do something proactive about my health, so I invested in some Ginseng products. My choice of product perhaps is questionable, but we shall see. I bought some Korean Red Ginseng Wine (pictured above), and I have been indulging every day (not to the point of drunkenness, mind you). Despite the rash of Ginseng products available everywhere these days, overuse of ginseng can be hard on your heart. Medicine can be poison and vice versa like a certain french philosopher and others have noticed. Ginseng is supposed to be a good tonic when you are ill. I think my sinuses warranted a shot, and so far I have noticed a slight improvement. When I bought the wine, they threw a huge bag of ginseng candies my way as well. That happens a lot here: buy something get something free.

Thank goodness for the man-shaped root.

Are there cameras in money?

I get paid in cash! WTF???? This still blows me away. The Koreans love their cash money.

The Art of Rolling.

People roll many things: pizza dough, joints, meditation balls, dice, California, but I just learned how to roll one of my favourite Korean foods. All hail Kimbop! I am on my way to a volcanic island in the sea of Japan, and on the bus to the city that runs the ferry service which I will use to get to the island, I met this really nice Korean fellow Jae-yung. He put me up for the night and taught me how to make Kimbop!

I'm stoked.

When I first tried to make Kimbop, I tried sealing it with rice syrup, but he told me all you need is water! I guess the K.I.S.S. axiom (keep it simple stupid) was applicable. Of course, I failed miserably with the rice syrup, but now I know!