So yea, I've been slipping my 10+ year-old 8 megapixel (huge when I bought it) Canon point-and-shoot into a backpack pocket and taking pics when fancy strikes. I'm not doing anything by doing it. It might be something like a last hurrah, similar with music and playing bass along with K-pop tunes for ear-training less than 2 hours everyday for the past two years, revisiting it as something I "used to do" while letting go any idea of it as a part of any identity. It's just something familiar and not a function of ego and as soon as it's not fun, I'll stop.

I've also found myself perusing photography books in the libraries and bookstores. Not sure why, perhaps for inspiration for what I'm not doing, but also investigating what it was and why it once was something I did. I discovered several photographers that I'd never heard of, despite them being apparently famous. I'm also fascinated by the text and commentary accompanying these books as they look into the psychology and character traits of the photographers, suggested by their photographs. Stuff that I recognize in myself or not, stuff that I agree with or not, but agreement or not it's all out there and valid or not. Quite frustrating, actually.

I guess the bottom line for me is that it's just personal, like this blog, and not for anyone else. It's just what I'm finding out about myself. 

Ansel Adams writes in his autobiography: Photographers who frequently travel photograph with less than full knowledge of their subjects. I believe one must live in a region for a considerable time and absorb its character and spirit before the work can truly reflect the experience of the place. In my own case, hasty visits have usually resulted in inconsequential images; perhaps an occasional flash of insight, or a remembrance of an earlier place or time helped in visualizing a photograph. 

Me, I've lived in Taiwan for over 13 years and I haven't absorbed the character and spirit of this place. I lived in San Francisco 11 years and didn't absorb the character and spirit of the place. So what is he talking about? That was it for him, that was important to him. Me, not so much. I'm a permanent outsider and I shoot as an outsider, never absorbing the character and spirit of a place. I actually identify more as an exile.

Or not (Josef Koudelka became an exile from his native Czechoslovakia a few years after the Soviet invasion in 1968):

"I didn't want to have what people call a 'home.' I didn't want to have the desire to return somewhere, I needed to know that nothing was waiting for me anywhere, that the place I was supposed to be was where I was at the moment. I once met a great guy, a Yugoslavian gypsy. We became friends. One day he told me, 'Josef, you've traveled for so many years, never stopped; you've seen lots of people and countries, all sorts of places. Tell me which place is the best. Where would you like to stay?' I didn't say anything. Just as I was about to leave, he asked again. I didn't want to answer him, but he kept on insisting. Finally he said, 'You know, I've figured it out! You don't want to answer because you still haven't found the best place. You travel because you're still trying to find it.' 'My friend,' I replied, 'you've got it all wrong. I'm desperately trying not to find that place.'"

If I posit myself as an urban hermit, I pale to his example. I'm stuck in neurotic, useless routines and my "best place" is my apartment where I'm meaninglessly complacently doing nothing for nobody, and which becomes a prison or a deeply egoistic sanctuary. There's no hint that he'd read even a word of Buddhism or Zen or enlightenment, but he was kinda living that path. Of course I don't know what drove him, but for my purposes I wish I could be like that.

Garry Winogrand was similarly an enigma:

. . . preferring to spend another day shooting rather than processing his film or editing his pictures. No prints existed of many of the best photographs he made in his first decades, and he left behind over sixty-five hundred rolls of film from his later years that he had never processed, or that he processed but never proofed, and whose content he had therefore never seen . . . and though his negatives and proof sheets . . . were numbered, there was no indication where one year ended and another began or where in the world Winogrand was when he exposed any given roll of film. 

That leaves me aghast 😱, as I'm the complete opposite with all my proof sheets and files meticulously numbered and dated. Is that a reflection of ego? Was his M.O. a function of non-ego? Not necessarily, probably not, who knows? But he was a photographer who didn't seem particularly interested in the photo. Was it that he was more interested in the process rather than the result? Was it not even that but the energy of being on the city streets and the flow of humanity and snapping photos in some ineffable effort to capture or see things that are otherwise fleeting and unnoticed?

To be sure, I couldn't shoot like he did, getting in close and shooting without permission or respect even. I recently watched a YouTube video of a Hong Kong/Londoner (his accent sounds too British to be Hong Kong British English) named Kai who was shooting like that in Taiwan and it just seemed rude and disrespectful, often confirmed by the videoed subjects' alarmed reactions. I'm not criticizing it, and the photos themselves were quite good. They did what they did to get their shots, I'm just unwilling to go there and would therefore never get those kinds of shots. 

Back to Winogrand, Ansel Adams, an early advocate (and perhaps paragon) of photography as fine art, would never entrust someone else to print his negatives without meticulous instruction on how he wanted it. That's another school of thought, where the artist's vision is emphasized. There's no art in shooting and then leaving printing or editing, which to Adams is interpretation, to someone else. There's also nothing wrong with that, either. Frustrating, see.

I found a Pablo Ortiz Monasterio monograph in the library that I think is a limited edition. It was printed on a specially selected Japanese paper that Ansel Adams would've appreciated. Adams was also concerned about reproductions of his work and that they reflected the quality of his original prints as much as possible.

Needless to say, all of these monographs are incredible and thought-provoking. There is a ridiculously broad range of even just street photography that is legitimate and valid, despite conflicts and contradictions and arguments for or against whatever. Like for me, context is important. Photography involves a mix of abstraction and reality. The image is actually quite abstract, which is why I always flipped black & white images unless there were words prominent that would call attention to that fact. There's the confinement of the frame, there's the loss of the depth dimension, there's the loss of color, and flipping the image was one more degree of abstracting the image; another way of saying what I saw didn't look like this at all. Context emphasizes the reality; this happened at an identifiable location, facing a certain direction with elements that were observable in the real world. Others may hate that and want to just appreciate the image on its own if it's worth it. It's like songwriters who never say what a song is about because once they do, that meaning is frozen and no one else can interpret it and give it meaning for themselves. Fair 'nuff, but out of all the descriptions, analyses and critiques of photos and photography, ain't nothin' gonna stop people shooting the way they do.

I'm under the description of photographers who try to be anonymous and discrete. Composition is important, but sometimes varying degrees of speed and spontaneity are necessary. If people are in the shot, their attention is not drawn to that fact. I'm not aggressive and in-your-face like Winogrand or that Hong Kong Kai guy. No doubt mine is a very common, pedestrian approach.

November snapshots

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 3:08 p.m. - Xinyi District. The building to the left of Taipei 101 is the new building in the skyline, opened this year. I love how from this angle there are two impressions of 101 on it; one the direct shadow, the other a reflection.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 11:40 a.m. - Right angles. Songjiang-Nanjing area.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 4:22 p.m. - Curves. The Living Mall, about to die. It will close its doors at the end of the month. Quite honestly it was a death a long time coming.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 9:00 a.m. - Alter. Laying groundwork for transformations.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 3:20 p.m. - I took a bunch of shots in this area, but immediately after shooting this I put away my camera thinking, "I got my shot", and rode away. Catching the sunlight off the flanges on 101 may be new for me.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2:10 p.m. - Plane taking off from Songshan Airport.

2:18 p.m. - Softball diamonds, riverside park, Neihu District.

2:30 p.m. - Minquan Rd. Bridge, Neihu District. I didn't notice they're both looking right at the camera!

2:46 p.m. - So I was at this little hole in the wall, and . . . 

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2:35 p.m. - Abandoned building looks surprised at being abandoned. West of Taipei Main Station.

2:39 p.m. - West of Taipei Main Station, along Zhongxiao W. Rd.

2:45 p.m. - Traditional characters. None of that simplified character shit those simpletons use in mainland China.

2:50-2:53 p.m. - West of Taipei Main Station. This area of several blocks, I think, used to be housing historically for military veterans of the Chinese Civil War and dependents. In my time here, people still lived in the area but it's now undergoing some sort of . . . reckoning. The top picture is a recent construction, I shouldn't wonder, and old houses had to be razed for this . . . beautification? The bottom pic is shot blind over the fence, and the government may be undecided whether to preserve, refurbish or raze the rest of what are basically ruins. Personally, I think something should be preserved to let people know of the history, while also doing something about the dilapidated nature of the ruins.

2:58 p.m. - Same area along Civic Blvd.

4:29 p.m. - Taipei Main Station.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2:31 p.m. - Taiwan-style graffiti, riverside bikeway. It will be white-washed over in a few weeks or months.

2:52 p.m. - New riverside park created over the summer when I wasn't riding in this area. This used to be a fenced-off area along the bikeway that seemed to be a combination of industrial wasteland of an adjacent factory and wild land that feral animals inhabited.

2:57 p.m. - The new park re-routes the bikeway. It used to run closer to the Keelung River along that fence at the bottom right of the pic. The suspension tower is the ruin of, I'm guessing, a bridge that crossed the Keelung River in the early part of the 20th century during the Japanese colonial period. From the old bikeway, it was visible but I never found an aesthetic way to shoot it. They kept it when they created the park, but now everyone is going to shoot it to death on their telephones, so I decided I didn't want to. Until that crane (egret?) landed on it.

3:14 p.m. - The giant cloud-striding spider descended the cloud bank that had lowered enough for it reach Taipei 101, down which it was able to reach terra firma, wreaking havoc and devouring tourists and locals alike. Death does not discriminate. It never rarely sometimes has . . . it does when humans are involved, but not giant spiders.

3:16 p.m. - Or not. The new park has a hill to climb. This is at the top.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1:38 p.m - Civic Blvd. elevated freeway and Eslite Spectrum. There used to be railroad here that led to the old Taiwan Railroad Administration workshop (unseen just left of center). The rails and buildings of the workshop still exist and I hear they're trying to create a historical museum and park to open to the public. 

3:24 p.m. - The new building in the Xinyi District skyline.

4:22 p.m. - Marshmallow sky, someone called it.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2:09 p.m. - Large-format advertising. Dunhua N. Rd.

2:19-2:20 p.m. - Street shooting. I'da preferred these in black & white. Most of these actually.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1:43 p.m. - Same subject as a few days before, I was taken by the removed rails, wondering what they were going to do with this area. The dying Living Mall is off to the left of this pic across Civic Blvd. a bit further down.

1:56 p.m. - Off Xinyi Rd.

4:35 p.m. - Plaza outside Songshan Eslite Spectrum. 

All in all, my experience going to the doctor and with Taiwan's National Health Insurance was pretty harmless. Helpful even, in meaningful ways that my experience with the health care profession in the U.S., including family, never was. For starters, it was effective for what it did. My hearing's not perfect, but I think that's a matter of course; physicians aren't magicians.

Each of my two visits cost me NT$200 out of pocket. Six bucks U.S., including prescriptions. I don't know how different it is at larger hospitals or for serious conditions, but with neighborhood clinics, I just presented my national health card, they immediately asked for NT$200, they gave me a number, I waited, I saw the doctor, I picked up my prescription with no further cost. Nifty.

My first six dollar visit got me a diagnosis and ear drops for the impacted wax. The second six dollar visit three days later confirmed that my ear was clean, but since my hearing was still wonky I got a 3-day regimen of antibiotics for the infection. After three more days my hearing still wasn't perfect, but had improved enough for me to delay going for a third visit. I had impacted wax and an infection and they gave me treatment for those. They hinted that the next step would be giving me a referral to a hospital for more sophisticated hearing tests. They had done all they could. 

My general belief is that the human body, given time, will for most part heal itself from most non-life threatening maladies. So the doctors having treated my direct and identifiable symptoms to the best of their knowledge and abilities was the limit of what I was willing to pursue medically, and now is the time to give it time; to convalesce.

I figure the residual tinnitus I still have – a bearable, unobtrusive mid-range tone and occasional hearing drop-off – may be the result of deformities in my ear structure caused by swelling from the infection, and that's not anything a doctor can do anything about. I just need whatever ear parts to settle into where they belong to stop the ringing. I can physically manipulate my ear gently and carefully and get clarity in my hearing, and that's evidence that I'm not suffering from any major hearing loss requiring sophisticated hospital equipment to identify.

Not drinking for three days was easy and a bit interesting as I'd have quick pangs that I should be drinking by now, but then remember I'm not supposed to. I also didn't drink for 24 hours after the last course of antibiotics, so yay me. Also interesting was my body wasn't all that happy with the re-start of alcohol intake. But a fine alcoholic I'd be if I didn't drink, so my body just has to deal with not being happy. My brain and body don't have the best means or mode of communication.

I went to the doctor on Sunday and found I have impacted wax and an ear infection. He vacuumed out a big honkin' chunk o' wax the size of a grapefruit (just kidding, more like a desiccated pea) with a tiny bit of fungus growing on it (just a strand) and gave me a course of ear drops to take three times a day and to come back in three days. I went again today and it looks pretty well cleaned out, but since my hearing isn't back to normal he (actually a different doctor, who thought I was Korean so it took a while to break out his English) gave me antibiotics to work on the infection and to come back in three days. Don't drink alcohol or coffee, he says.

Coffee's no problem, I've descended into being satisfied with powdered Maxwell House coffee so that's easy to avoid. It's barely coffee. As for alcohol, I wasn't about to make any promises but then decided a web search was in order. In general, antibiotics and alcohol don't mix but I wanted to know what I was risking. I found a list of antibiotics that are particularly bad with alcohol and then checked if any of mine were on the list. The last tablet I checked includes two on the list and since the side-effects of mixing with alcohol are basically many of the gut problems I've had over the years and went away when I cut back on drinking, I decided to crawl on the wagon for a few days. I don't need to invite those symptoms back.

So now I get to test what I said about mindfulness practice and alcoholism. Great!🥴 Well, it's only three days, how hard can it be? If it's at all hard, I should consider myself full of crap in regard to that aspect of mindfulness practice. *sigh* I'm hungry. Hunger at this time usually goes away when I start drinking. And do I really drink that much? It doesn't feel like I do, but I guess that's what an alcoholic would say. Is a third of a bottle (and a beer appetizer) a lot? A little more than that is what I drink in a 24-hour period. Who am I talking to?

After all I've boasted and bragged (not really) about never going to the doctor, I'm planning on going this evening. Excruciating abdominal pain didn't do it. The possibility of glaucoma and future blindness didn't do it. A plethora of niggling seemingly-health-related-oddities-that-make-me-wonder-what-the-hell-is-going-on didn't do it. Nevertheless, it should come as no surprise that what's doing it are symptoms suggesting possible "pulsatile tinnitus", according to a cursory DuckDuckGo search (trying to avoid using China-friendly, "evil is swell", internet-monopolistic Google). 

Something's messed up in my right ear and I can hear my pulse, accompanied by tinnitus which I chronically get having supposedly been a rock musician, as well as occasional pain and hearing loss, which I don't chronically get. It was something I expected to go away, but after a few days it persists and although some websites say it should go away in a few weeks, others warn not to ignore it and get a real diagnosis. In this case, I'm gonna err on the side of caution and not wait "a few weeks" for it to sort itself out before getting it checked out.

Deciding to plan to go see a doctor is no minor source of anxiety, mind you; the least of which is just the idea of seeing a doctor. If something seems serious enough to see a doctor, I'm good with that; it's just something I have to do. Anything seemingly less serious, I just wouldn't even go. The anxiety is more about navigating the national health insurance system which I've never done before on my own, and dealing with the language issue in case the office or the doctors themselves don't speak English. Now, most Taiwanese doctors have some facility in English, it's just part of higher education. I think all hospitals in Taipei can accommodate English to some degree.

But I'm not going to a hospital. Much of Taiwan's national health insurance also supports specialized local clinics; step-in places for spot treatment, I think. These clinics can be found on every business street in Taipei, easily spotted by a distinct national health insurance logo, and knowledge of written Chinese will tell what the specialty is. In my case, I can recognize characters for nose-ear-throat (鼻-耳-喉) and I'll go to one of those I've located in my neighborhood which doesn't open until 6:30 p.m. on Sundays. I'm just a little less confident about English-ability in these neighborhood clinics, but I may be able to get by with my cursory Mandarin if no one speaks English *anxiety, anxiety, anxiety*. Also in these situations, there's a distinct possibility there will be an English-speaking good Samaritan who will step in to help translate. That's actually not uncommon in Taiwan; I've observed people will help people in seeming need. 

I'll probably have to fill out forms, so along with my national health card, Taiwan ID and (expired) passport for good measure, I'll also take along my written address if I have to provide that in Chinese *anxiety, anxiety, anxiety*. I've re-memorized my old 2G phone number in case I have to provide a phone number. It doesn't work, but it's easier to give a defunct number than trying to explain that I don't have a phone, which nowadays is akin to having to explain how I'm breathing or that I'm here at all. 

Now, me being me, I have to blow this up to the wider issue of 'what if my hearing is going?'. Is hearing loss an end-game? Indications of oncoming blindness is probably end-game. If I went completely blind, suicide is no longer an option so I would need to do it while I can. Cancer I've already entertained is end-game. Other non-health-related circumstances that would force me into situations that I can't imagine adjusting to (like having to move) might possibly be end-game. 

Hearing loss? All other circumstances that I identify as end-game involve other people and my relationship with the world. Hearing loss is just me and doesn't effect anyone else. But as listening to music is among my last few enjoyments of being alive, hearing loss would reduce quality of living to under, let's say, 10%.

Still, if it doesn't effect anything else but me, it isn't the endgame of an untenable circumstance that I have no control of, but rather becomes part of mindfulness practice of not being attached and letting go. Being able to listen and enjoy music is very important, but that's what makes it an attachment. Being forced to give it up is a mindfulness challenge to that attachment. Mindfulness practice is more important than enjoying music. If the two can co-exist, there's no problem. But if they conflict, mindfulness practice prevails, even if it means a further step towards my ultimate goal of suicide, which is something I both want and am resistant to. 

I've continued to listen to music per habit these past few days. Sometimes the tinnitus is unnoticeable with earbuds and sometimes it's noticeable (can't hear the right channel). I've turned down the volume to prevent further damage and discomfort of high volumes (not that I blast music in earbuds anyway). But if forced to realize that continuing listening to music here on in would mean degraded quality, I think I'd consider it not worth it and giving up that enjoyment and adjusting. It might just be a great relief. If it's in furtherance of a next suicide attempt, then praise the lord it be so. To be clear, it's not an excuse or reason for suicide. It's just removing a lame excuse and strong attachment to keep living.

I take it as my loss that my whole life Patti Smith has remained off my radar. I knew her as a one-hit wonder with "Because the Night" co-written (but primarily written by) with Bruce Springsteen. But she's released a starving baking student's dozen of albums and has enjoyed a long career as a highly respected artist, musician and writer.

When I was plumbing local public libraries for rock biographies, I did see her Just Kids (2010) and picked it up, but put it back down despite seeing it was highly lauded. It just didn't read like the usual rock biography. Recently I saw her M Train (2015) in the library for the first time and judging it by its cover decided to give it a spin. I was transfixed. Something about her writing style sucked me in and tainted the way I moved about the rest of my day, like every little thing was just hoping to become memory. Kindred mentions of Wings of Desire (one of my favorite movies from college) and The Master and Margarita (one of my favorite books from high school) tugged; although I should mention that I didn't get the vast majority of allusions and references she dropped from her copious knowledge of arts and culture.

M Train put me in meditative, hyper-observant moods that had me thinking and seeing in her voice. Mind you, that happened with Catch-22, too, and after reading that I'd go about making quirky observations and absurd interpretations of things around me. M Train also had me go back to Just Kids (at another library) and I ended up loving that, too. The tone of the two works are quite different despite being published only five years apart. Both can be considered memoirs. Just Kids is about her early life and relationship with artist/photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, whose name was familiar to me since his death from AIDS in the late 80s was well-reported in the news because of the "controversial" nature of his work. I didn't know there was a connection between them. She wrote the book to fulfill a promise she made to him when he was dying to tell their story.

M Train covers personal aspects of her adult life apart from Mapplethorpe, and is a bit cagey about her music career which was a little off-putting at first but I came to understand. Like she never mentions "Because the Night", but instead says that she "came across a bit of money". She also casually mentions touring to earn enough money to buy or invest in something that was important to her, but touring is a big thing! It means she's a big deal in some way; she has backing, an audience and a way to pay musicians. But that's not the emphasis of the book, so she rightfully downplays it. M Train is in a completely different mental state from Just Kids. The important men in her life have all gone and I got the sense of her moving on with her life in a certain amount of personal isolation and grief. Batty, even. Mental. But artistic, because she's an artist.

I don't know if I would have been a fan of her music if I had been exposed to her long ago (like I would have with Sonic Youth), but unfortunately I only heard that one radio hit and no one I knew had any of her albums or didn't push them on me. She's also a photographer, and it may have been her pictures that prompted me to wonder about my iPhone as a camera and dig up what cameras I had left.

Speaking of reads, I also recently read a book about "The Simpsons" called Springfield Confidential by Mike Reiss, which is a no-brainer, (library) must-read for anyone even vaguely entertained by the show. The thing is a lot of what he writes are actually jokes rather than anecdotes. But it's a simple formula to figure out what is which: if it has a punchline, it's a joke. And a lot of his "anecdotes" have punchlines. He does write about the internationalization of "The Simpsons" and how there are fans all over the world who take sudden interest in him once he tells them his job. What I don't know if he knows is that in the Taiwan market, (I'm told) the show isn't directly or loosely translated but has a completely re-written script in Chinese to something that still matches the visuals but has nothing to do with the original plot in English! That's some mind-blowing, extra-level creativity going on there!

October snapshots

I know I said I wasn't going back to doing anything like this, but I'm a liiiiiaaarrr but I'm not really. It's just toting a point-and-shoot camera around. Anyway, in the words of Alfred Stieglitz, according to Ansel Adams, "I have the desire to photograph. I go out with my camera. I come across something that excites me emotionally, spiritually, aesthetically. I see the photograph in my mind's eye and I compose and expose the negative. I give you the print as the equivalent of what I saw and felt". He was a giant and pioneer of modern photography, but what he says is so simply human that it applies to anyone, even a dork with a digital point-and-shoot, no?

October 17, 2:53 p.m. - Keelung River and Maishuai Bridge #2, shooting north from Maishuai Bridge #1. There are not many public places named for western figures. Roosevelt Rd. is one, and these two bridges are named after that handsome devil MacArthur (麥帥).

4:38 p.m. - Xinyi District's burgeoning skyline from Neihu. When I first got here, it was just the Taipei 101 tower sticking out and giving me the finger. Now we have the complete set!

October 21, 4:08 p.m. - Huashan 1914 Creative Park.

4:19 p.m. - Public sculpture probably made from local found detritus from what was here before, a sake brewery rings a bell. And including the rail ties!:

4:30-4:39 p.m. - Right behind me in the previous pic, but not in plain sight I discovered these abandoned railroad tracks on the northern edge of the park, barb wired and fenced and covered with overgrowth (I'm sticking my arm way out through the fence and shooting blind taking the first shot, one of many until I got one level). I imagine these would have emerged from the underground Taipei Main Station less than a mile west, and heading to points east and down the coast. Even in my time in Taiwan there were surface trains and level crossings in eastern Taipei, but they've all been moved underground since.

4:43 p.m. - This walkway follows the still-visible remnants of a small industrial railroad which was used by what was here before. Would a sake brewery need a railroad or a smokestack? Why not? The reason I was here, though, was because the Guanghua Digital Plaza is a block away and I was getting a new battery for my Canon IXUS 860 IS. All of the above were shot with my Ricoh Caplio R4. 

October 23, 3:16 p.m. - Taipei Fine Arts Museum Park. The rest are shot with the IXUS 860 IS.

October 28, 4:49 p.m. - Songshan Airport.

5:00 p.m. - Songshan Airport observation deck.

5:05 p.m. - Shooting north with clouds rolling over the Yangmingshan range.

October 29, 4:35 p.m. - I was wondering why the hell I was taking a picture of a wall, but after I got home I noticed the reflections in the windows of the wall behind me of the Eslite Spectrum building creating interesting patterns.

4:38 p.m. - Said Eslite Spectrum building and said wall on the right side.

If I had to choose a favorite of the month, it'd probably be the airport observation deck.

I've been experiencing depression lately! I don't get depressed in general, believe it or not, so although it's unpleasant and perplexing, it's also a bit interesting in ways. If I may be so bold, my brand of mindfulness practice precludes mental health issues. Or perhaps, rather, what might be conventionally seen as mental health issues are filtered through a prism of mindfulness practice, broken apart and considered in constituent parcels.

When the feeling arose, the first thing I did was identify it and not deny it. It felt bad, it was dark and persistent, it was a thing as real as it could be without being solid and it didn't have an identifiable cause. It wasn't a passing mood or just feeling down. Hello darkness my old friend, you've come to bend me over once again. As soon as the identification was made, mindfulness practice kicks in to investigate it; examine the contours, what is it doing to my thoughts and feelings? Pick it apart intellectually at first and then dispel it logically by realizing its illusory nature and using my brand of mindfulness practice that doesn't allow for it because I have too many other mental afflictions to investigate. Don't get attached to it, don't give it any substance or traction, don't react to it and just let it be and wait it out as if it were a physical ailment. That's what mindfulness practice teaches in this situation, that's what makes it useful.

The manifestation is real and can't be downplayed, only placed into perspective. It arises at times when there's a lull in my mental continuum, between things I was doing that kept me distracted, and it would be exacerbated by the simulated urban hermit situation I've created for myself; the isolation, the lack of connection and relationships, no where and no one to turn to. Tunnel vision, tunnel consciousness, closing in on all sides, tinges of desperation. The season and the sun going down sooner each day not helping; even my age and degraded eyesight contribute. It's hard to describe when I'm not feeling it, and when I'm feeling it, trying to describe it isn't high on my priorities (actually no, that's exactly what mindfulness practice does, blogging about it is what's not high priority).

I thought it may be related to Sulli's suicide. Not just hers, but a month earlier another female singer, Woo Hyemi or Miwoo, was reported having died at age 31, but she was much less known and reportage was sparse and ambiguous regarding the circumstances with little follow-up. That's code in Korea's cagey media that foreigners learn to decipher that it was most likely a suicide. If a young death is not suicide, they readily report the cause, so if they don't report what happened for whatever reason, that's pretty much their way of reporting it was a suicide. And it turns out I know who she was, her debut song as Miwoo made it onto my 2015 mix CDs. A month before her death she released a song under her name Woo Hyemi which I didn't recognize, but I subsequently looked it up after I realized who she was and it's poignantly sad, but quite beautiful.

I have kept both women in mind, including during morning sitting, focusing energies, trying to get my head around at least Sulli's depression and mental illness that led so finally and deafeningly to her suicide. I'm supposedly suicidal, although having failed at it for so long might preclude the claim. I don't have depression, although believing I'm suicidal but failing at it for so long might preclude the claim. But I know I wouldn't commit suicide because of depression, and even during these bouts with it I've re-affirmed that. And oddly, regarding alcohol, drinking doesn't make it worse as one might believe it would. It's actually a comfort, something familiar. Here's that feeling again. I think I'll have a drink. Ah, much better.

But I was having trouble empathizing and understanding what happened to Sulli, and I want to. Shinee's Jonghyun I got. Robin Williams I got. Even Anthony Bourdain I got, just a lot didn't make sense and was counter to what I supposedly got. With Sulli it was why'd you hafta go and do something like that? So the universe, if not Sulli's energy itself, sends this to me to try on for size.

I guess the next step in mindfulness practice is connecting the depression with Sulli herself to try to understand it and generate compassion for her and truly empathize. This feeling I'm experiencing but multiplied by 10 or some greater factor had become her reality. Whoosh! I can only scratch it, but that may be enough. I don't need the full force of what she felt nor how all-encompassing and consuming it must have become. May she reincarnate in peace.

I had to go back and look at what I wrote after K-pop boy group Shinee's Jonghyun committed suicide in December 2017 at the age of 27, and why I wrote so much when I wasn't a fan and didn't know a whole lot about him. I do remember wondering what I would feel if such a tragedy hit closer to home.

Ex-f(x) member Sulli committing suicide last week at the age of 25 was closer to home, but curiously I don't have a lot to say about it. The feelings have been very subtle, persistent, resonating, existential tailspins whenever I considered what I had read and tried to fill in the blanks. Everything was wrong and tragic about it. Everyone in and into the K-pop scene should be angry and outraged about it. Basically, she killed herself after years of enduring hateful and malicious comments on her social media when she was just being herself and expressing her views, and it affected her mental health to the extent that she finally ended her own life.

It shouldn't have happened. She wasn't predisposed to suicide. It bothers me that she's no longer here. But I don't have a whole lot to say beyond that.

Fancam from one of the last times Sulli performed with f(x) in 2014:



I admit I was disappointed when she left the group in 2014, but when she returned to music earlier this year and released a surprise three-song single, I was blown away by how good quality and what a fully-formed concept (i.e., not throwaway or half-assed cookie-cutter) it was.

Not much going on with the change of seasons. The change of a season's enough of a reason to want to get away. It's still hot, but pleasantly hot now and continues to get cooler. My previous post about iPhones and cameras has not led to any re-interest in shooting, thankfully. Some looking to see if I see anything, but alas no "seeing", which was what photography was about. Actually, I vaguely recall the reason I stopped shooting was because I stopped seeing, and had been struggling with it for some time. So much so that I think it was an easy decision to stop. And then, as I mentioned, I was glad to have stopped when smartphones made me irrelevant.

I did go back into my archives to the last rolls I shot in 2011 to get a sense of why I stopped (months actually, not rolls as the last few months were with my brother's Nikon D80 DSLR). It actually wasn't all that lacking, a lot of re-treading subject matter as I'd already shot so much in my years here there wasn't a lot new. But it's the feeling that's important and I won't doubt what I was feeling at the time, which is that it was getting harder to see. Ah, it all comes back to me now. The idea was that the shots are out there, around us all the time, and it's a matter of being able to see them. They're not all gold, a lot are duds, but a good amount are workable. But there's nothing to work on when I'm not shooting anything, and I'm not shooting anything because I'm not, at the very least, seeing something. I'm perfectly happy not going back to all that.

But that led to looking farther back into my archives and remembering that fotolog was pretty much dead and had been for some time – a good thing really since their quality and functionality as a website ended up sucking quite a wad. But that means my photos are no where online. So shameless, narcissistic, serial archivist that I am, I'm contemplating the possibilities. I'm considering uploading them to this blog retroactively since almost all my photos are meticulously dated, a practice I started immediately upon taking beginning black & white classes. And since Blogger is now owned by Google, one (rare) advantage is I think the memory storage limit is very high. I actually don't know. If they're still stored in Picasa, I have no idea what the limit is. But if they're stored on Google Drive, I still have 7GB of storage. The problem remains that it would be a project that would take a very, very long time and I might get bored or sick of it. Photography pre-dates this blog, so at least there's that limit I can impose on myself. The purpose would be purely archival, mind you, as I'm under no delusion that the photos would ever actually be seen. It's just what serial archivists do.

"Why thank you"
July 28, 2010, Taipei. From my last roll of Lomo Fisheye 2, none of which has been posted anywhere. Generic color 400 film.