love today (aka what im into at the moment)

author:
charles bukowski, as per usual
saving ham on rye for a rainy korean day
wish i could drink a jug of port wine with him
sadly after reading so much buckowski hunter s. seems a bit dull...is that blasphemous?












movie:
running with scissors, based on the memoirs of augusten burroughs
quirky, fantastic, depressing, grim, unbelievable, believable
damn you gwyneth paltrow, lucky enough to be in the royal tenenbaums AND this gem







tv:
simon amstell in general, but namely never mind the buzzcocks, in all its british comedic glory
its actually up there with little britain...quite a feat if i do say so myself





music:
girl in a coma...these girls rock my socks

wanderlust (aka what dreams may come)

tonight i had a dream of living in every country in the world for 6 months

there are said to be 194 countries in the world (this includes taiwan)

this means it would take 97 years to live out my dream

furthermore, there are a number of countries i would not be able to visit for political/safety reasons

this does not, however, make the odds of my living to well over 100 years of age any more likely

i suppose i need a new dream

will let you know when i figure it out

an exercise in negative space

on a weekend trip to ulsan i found myself in gyeongju, the former capital of korea (when it was referred to as "the kingdom of silla" over a thousand years ago). the city, described on it's website as "a museum without walls", is just that, with many symbolic sites and artifacts. what i particularly enjoyed was the temple in Bulguksa, reflecting the former governments patronage of buddhism. i wish time had been on my side (for once!) and i had been able to explore the mountainsides of gyeongju, which lend to a veritable treasure hunt for stone carvings of buddhas and bodhisattvas. however stepping into super mario land and witnessing the gyeongju burial mounds was definitely a treat.

on the bus from bulguksa to gyeongju city i saw an extremely unique building that my friends pointed out in passing. i thought it was so cool that i had to look it up. it's called Gyeongju Tower and is actually shaped like the former Hwanryongsa temple's pagoda. only here's the catch: the building is rectangular and surrounds a negative space that is the shape of the historic pagoda. i think the result is stunning! truly unlike anything i've ever seen...

the philosophical musings of a loner

some thoughts i had my first week here...when i spent A LOT of time alone...

When you read a book, or a short story, or an article or a quote, are you changed?
When you learn a new fact can you ever be the same?
Or does that new thing penetrate your entire being, devouring the self you once were and creating the self you now are. Sensory experience…it has a way of stirring change. If I see a photo that moves me, or a photo that does nothing to me at all, is there a difference?
Both have some effect on my being, both shape who I am.
One reinforces what I like. The other reinforces what I don’t like. Or what I’m indifferent about.
So how do I know my self? My being?
Are there patterns of the self that one may know? Tendencies?
If I hate bananas and go through half my life with this hatred entrenched in my being but one day I taste it prepared in a way that I like, is there a ripple effect? Does that shake my every dislike? Must I reconsider all the things I’d believed I hated?
Is it enough to know oneself at a moment in time and not know oneself the next? But then discover ones new self a moment after that moment of uncertainty?
I have spent a number of full days alone and yet I feel no closer to myself than I did before…except that I am more aware of how little I know. Does this mean I know more?

blogger: take two

i've had many a revelation as of late, namely the fact that you can't really fancy yourself a writer if you don't write. a sensational connect-the-dots on my part, no? hence my renewed interest in and triumphant return to my blog. but take two will be different as it comes to you uncut, uncensored and commercial-free from my new abode in "korea land" (aka south korea).
i've been here a little over a month now and suffice to say there's been no end to the interesting and bizarre things i've witnessed in seoul. more on that later (can't deplete my best material in the first post if i intend to write regularly now can i). right now i'm sitting in my small albeit comfortable apartment in kanseo-gu watching on style's kate moss: exposed. celebrity gossip makes me feel at home. sad, i know. but it beats age of love (a devastatingly poor excuse for reality television, however devastating reality television is to begin with, in which a group of 40-somethings who look 30 and a group of whorish 20-somethings vie for a man in his 30's...will true love prevail to spite the stigma of age? i will hopefully not have to find out). hmmm...a tangent. get used to those. that's pretty much how my brain works in a nutshell.
going to watch one of many bootleg dvds i've acquired while here (a definite perk), running with scissors. quite excited. the commentator on kate moss: exposed just pronounced longchamps with a pronounced "s" at the end...tee hee. why does that amuse me so?
i leave you with a picture of myself and a giant, happy bottle of soju (korea's distilled rice liquor, much like a low budg sake, pretty sweet at a dollar a bottle). i think this is one of few places in the world where a bottle of booze is made to be cutesie. everything here is cutesie. as you walk into a pork restaurant you're greeted by an wide-eyed, animated pig smiling at you as if to say "eat me, i'm delicious" (i like to imagine it's voice as bearing a close resemblance to the gay bee on family guy). p.s. props to myself for uploading a pic when all the controls were in korean