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.

I have a confession to make. After all I've boasted and bragged (not really) about not having a phone, I actually do have an iPhone. I've had an iPhone since April 2018. OK, I've physically had an iPhone in my apartment since April 2018 after I went down to Kaohsiung for a family matter that required my signature and my aunt foisted an old iPhone on me in case I decided I needed wanted needed a phone. Figuring the iPhone was a spare and likely no sacrifice on my aunt's part, I accepted it and upon returning to Taipei, placed it in a ziplock bag with some silica packets and stuffed it away out of sight and out of mind. 

Recognition of the iPhone in my apartment wasn't revived until over a year later when I got Samsung blootueth Galaxy buds for my computer. I wondered if, even without a 4G phone account, the iPhone could be used as a bluetooth mp3 player. I'm technologically inept, so it took about a month before I concluded it cannot. The month included several weeks before I found my aunt had included a sim card hidden in the iPhone case so I could actually activate it, only to find iPhones won't sync with anything but the latest version of iTunes (at least I'm assuming that's the reason for my computer's immediate and unequivocal (almost disdainful) rejection of the iPhone or vice versa). Years ago I tried a newer version of iTunes, but it was so unsightly and counter to my use of iTunes that I immediately re-installed the older version and stuck to it with every new laptop I've gotten. There will be no syncing this iPhone to my computer and no loading music onto it.

This epitomizes my relation with smartphone technology, mind you. Useless. All dead ends.

But fiddling with this iPhone also reminded me this thing is a camera, too! I was actually aware of that fact, believe it or not, but didn't care since I had all but hard-stopped photography way back in 2011. After smartphones and their camera capabilities started to become ubiquitous, I was really happy that I had already stopped shooting because they rendered my kind of street shooting meaningless with everyone shooting everything all the time, and the truth of the matter is my photography was nothing special and no better than what everyone was photo-dumping online. Why bother?

But I fiddled with the iPhone 6 camera just out of curiosity.

September 2, 4:56 p.m. - The neighborhood park on the block I live on. They fenced off the playground area for several weeks and now it appears they're building something over the concrete slides that haven't changed since I moved here. I'm curious what they're doing to it.

September 8, 4:34 p.m. - Riverside park near the closest access point by bike from where I live (Minsheng E. Rd). The arches of Maishuai Bridges #1 and #2 visible. The closest riverside park access point on foot, if I was, say, hypothetically in excruciating abdominal pain, from my apartment, less than half a mile, is by the closer bridge.

Although not at all interested in doing it again, it got me looking around my apartment at whatever was remnant of photography. I dug up a Ricoh Caplio R4 digital point-and-shoot that actually still works! The screen is a bit foggy (but was always terrible anyway), but the battery still had charge(!) and apparently I had taken some shots with it in 2016 (prior to that, the last pics are from 2008). I also have a Canon IXUS 860 IS digital point-and-shoot that succeeded the Ricoh and was a much better camera, but its battery was completely depleted. Then I remembered laptops have SD memory card ports so I was able to inspect what activity there had been between 2011 and when the battery died, and found images on it taken here and there until 2015. Not a lot, mind you, about a hundred pictures with almost half taken at the National Air and Space Museum annex outside D.C., and I do remember whenever I used the camera I had no immediate intention of doing anything with the pictures. I was just putting them into the camera. I was done with "photography".

I created a folder cache for those years to put into my records on my computer, but it's quite paltry. When I was actively shooting I had folders organized by months (digital) or rolls (film) in folders by years/series, organized by camera. The whole of my photo records comes in at almost 23GB (not high quality) and 436 folders, including some 16 years of black & white shooting.

I still have a Lomo Fisheye 2 that even has film in it. The last roll of Lomo Fisheye I had developed was in July 2010 (and none of that appears to have been posted anywhere, indicating reasons for the photography hard-stop actually started a while before the actual stop), so I assume the roll was loaded right after that. Three frames had been exposed, but I have no intention of finishing the roll, although after nearly 10 years it might be interesting. The camera is covered in crud and I'm considering giving it a cosmetic cleaning just to give it the respect it's due.

The only film SLR I still have here is my brother's Nikon N70 and it hasn't stored well (no ziplock or silica pack storage). It's a very sad camera, but not beyond rehabilitation if I wanted to use it. I don't, but I do still have a roll of Ilford XP2 Super in the fridge that expired in 2012. Admittedly, film that old makes me want to shoot it just to see the results (sometimes expired film, unlike food, brings serendipity). The SLRs that I took back to New Jersey after I stopped shooting are my Pentax ZX-5n, which I loved, and a digital Nikon D80 that my brother gave me after he upgraded, but I only used it for a few months before the hard-stop.

Ricoh Caplio R4 (I'm quite pleased that for my kind of photography, smartphones render inferior image quality from even digital point-and-shoots):

September 22, 4:02 p.m. - Fuming Ecological Park (富民生態公園), actually just a glorified neighborhood park that's really, really angry - it's fuming! (I'm actually making fun of the English signage for the park, 富民 should be Fumin). Hey, no one gets it, but I laughed when I saw it.

4:05 p.m. - The R4 has always given me blurry results in poor light, but these kids were also moving as I spy shot them. 

4:22 p.m. - Shooting north from Minquan Rd. Bridge. I'm right above the flood wall that protects residents in case the Keelung River floods during typhoons. The Keelung River on the right makes a hard left turn west and runs south of Neihu District directly ahead.

4:29 p.m. - Back down off the Minquan Bridge, since I didn't intend to cross the bridge, by the river bank shooting south with the arches of the two Maishuai Bridges under the rather plain, utilitarian Minquan Bridge.

I did a little thought experiment with that cancer blog I read and went back to the beginning of his experience to see how far I would've made it if I found myself in a parallel situation. I swear I'm not obsessed with his blog or anything, but there is a lot to think about and mull over theoretically about living and dying from what he presents.

He first noticed something wrong with his guts during a road trip in the latter part of May 2014, initially thinking it was a bad omelette while driving out to Chicago. He endured symptoms over the course of the road trip with his brother taking Route 66 (and copious amounts of over-the-counter stomach medicine) from Chicago to Santa Monica, and by the end of May he was back in Seattle. I imagine I would've done exactly the same. If it was physically possible for me to keep pushing on, I think I would have in silent complaint. 

The next milestone was stabbing abdominal pains on June 9 that kept him up all night wondering whether he should go to the ER. By morning he quickly realized going to work was not going to happen and he went to the ER that was three blocks away from his condo in Capitol Hill. He calls it Group Health, but from Google maps (no I'm not obsessing), I think he's referring to the Kaiser Permanente, a west coast health care behemoth with which I'm unfortunately familiar. 

Could I even get to the ER? I was once in a similar situation a bunch of years ago (whoa, dude! That was coincidentally also in September! I didn't look for the post to get the link, but just came across it in the course of things. I call it 911 in that post for familiarity, but here, and most of Asia, it's 119). Five or six hours of excruciating, stabbing abdominal pains that had me laid out gripping my mattress, sweating with the air conditioning on, making frequent trips to the bathroom whenever that seemed to be an option for some relief from the pain. I had my backpack prepared as a go-bag with things I thought I'd need if it got so bad that I felt it was absolutely necessary to make a dash out into the rain and hail a cab for the nearest hospital. But it abated after five or six hours and never came to that. I never told anyone about it, but my best guess is that it was kidney stones which I hear are very painful but no permanent damage after they pass.

I don't know what my breaking point is to go to the ER when enduring that kind of pain, but it's safe to say more than five or six hours. But what if the pain continued and didn't look like it was going to let up? I'm going to assume for this experiment that I make it to the ER, but because I'm me I have to consider the possibility that I wouldn't get to the ER. Faced with needing to do something, no longer being able to endure enduring the pain at home, I might just make my way to the river about a half mile away (possibly less than three Seattle blocks), and I have no idea how that scenario continues. Collapse and die? Collapse and fall into the river and drown? Collapse and someone notices and calls 119? 

But I get to the ER because he did. He had health insurance and I don't, but Taiwan has national health. I don't know how that works nor where I fit into it, but let's say, like him, I don't have to worry about that (my national health card would've been thrown into the go-bag). A CT scan is required. He had a problem lying down for any period of time because of back problems, but I don't. The scan results pointed to needing a colonoscopy and he had to be sent to another hospital for that as an in-patient, but he couldn't just head over there himself. He needed to call someone to go with him. He had to go through his metaphorical rolodex and his younger sister was finally able to accommodate. 

Me?: "Is there anyone you can call?" No. No family? No. Friends? No. No friends? I don't even have a phone. I don't have anyone's phone number, much less anyone with a car. I can't even call my landlord. Imagine if that was where it all ends, lol! But as far as this thought experiment goes, it just may as well be. If in that parallel situation, I suppose they would arrange an ambulance or (more likely) a taxi to transport me (or they might have the facilities to do the colonoscopy), but once the reality of the colonoscopy* became manifest along with the discovery of the mass and the surgery required to cut it out, I would go along only as far they rolled me along that path telling me what needed to happen, and only as long as they actually instigated it. As soon as I could make an escape, out of their sight and their control, it would be endgame for me. If at any point I could say, "I need to go home and think about it" and they let me, that would be it and I'd be gone. If they said, "No, we can't let you go under these conditions", then I'd play along until I could get away. I'm a very patient patient.

* They literally, not metaphorically, shove a camera up your asshole after 24 hours of cleaning out all the shit, literally, with the medical metaphor of Drano and look for anything that doesn't belong there.

Needless to say, there would be no chemo for me. Once a terminal diagnosis is made, I wouldn't do anything to further treatment. I don't know if I would even tell anyone, but stranger things have happened and I just don't know myself well enough to guess what I would do (that's a totally separate (and futile) thought experiment). My hope would be just to have enough time to metaphorically clear my browser history (as well as literally clear my browser history since that seems to be what people do, not sure why), finish up any loose ends and proceed with plan A, involving dying without dignity. 

I finished reading that blog by the person who had terminal cancer, and unfortunately his final post, entitled "My Final Post", was not to report a miracle cure and that the cancer was gone and there was no more need to maintain the blog. I'm sure the hope he was hoping against was more than mine.

All that was done and dusted 3 years ago, and it was still sad when the end came and how. Actually no, it didn't matter how, just that the end came. There was a lot that was left out in his last days, I shouldn't wonder, but he would be forgiven if the pain he was in precluded blogging about it. It's not clear if the cancer killed him or if he "died with dignity", taking the killer drugs that under state law allowed him to end his life himself when the suffering became too great.

Ironically, he created what I think is a valuable document. One of his gripes early on when obsessively researching cancer after he was diagnosed (a quite common reaction), was that all of the testimony regarding treatment and drug therapies were by survivors. People testifying this or that was great or worked, but what about the people for whom those treatments didn't work? His blog now exists as a voice of someone who didn't survive, and even as his was stage 4 terminal cancer with little chance of long-term survival, he voices an experience of the various treatments he underwent, while clearly stating the kind of patient he was: a cancer specialist's nightmare, i.e., one who wasn't willing to sacrifice quality of life. He was willing to forego treatment, i.e., die sooner, if it meant day-to-day present moment pain was more manageable, rather than subject himself to the mercy (or lack thereof) of the medical/big pharma/insurance industry and their mess of a system with whatever treatment they conjure to live longer but in considerably more misery. What's worth what to whom is totally subjective and up to the individual.

And it should not be missed that the big turning point in his decision about continuing treatment, which was to not continue treatment, i.e., give up, i.e., fuckitall, was because of the mental frustrations dealing with the quixotic clown show (or goat rodeo, as he might call it but actually doesn't) of the health care industry and its administrative system (not the hands-on medical professionals trying to treat him).

My personal take from his experience is that I'm pretty confident I'm not fooling myself about my attitude towards death or dying. He would write things distinctly from the perspective of someone facing death, and I would recognize it as the reality-perspective I steep in. To him it was something new he was facing and realizing. It's my normal. Like from his normal, he would forewarn readers when he would be writing about death and dying, assuming it was unpleasant and depressing, but for me that was the stuff I wanted to know. It was my version of what a cancer patient starts researching obsessively once diagnosed. It's the distinction between someone living an ordinary life and suddenly coming to terms that this life must end, and having that as an acknowledged assumption from the start. Am I dying of anything? Not that I know of. Am I dying? We all are, honey.

Another take away from his blog is that personal blogs can endure! It's been almost three years since his last post and still I found his blog and read it and found it meaningful and worthy (even with its shortcomings). I don't remember how I found it. Sometimes after I do a web search I'll do the same search with "blog" added at the end. I think that's how I found his, but I forget the search term and haven't been able to re-create it. And anyway that technique of looking for blogs has become less effective as search engines, especially "evil is OK!" Google, gear and funnel results towards corporate, profitable or trending hits. Web searches are no longer democratic emphasizing the actual search terms (otherwise when you search "patagonia", for example, you'd get the place first, not the company. If someone created a successful company called "Suicide, Inc.", their website would probably end up superseding the topic), and it's almost impossible to find personal blogs worth reading; little voices who are just stating their experience and reality. It was hard enough even when Blogger had a "Next Blog" function that led to a random Blogger blog, but Google removed that citing "lack of use", ensuring absolute "non-use".

A possible good thing about that is that it's more safe to maintain a personal blog because the chances are low that someone they know will randomly find it. A lot of people I knew ended their blogs over concerns about what they were putting out and who might find it and possible unexpected and unpredictable consequences. I was never concerned about that because I never felt anyone would care about anything I put out.

2018 mix CDs

I wonder. Has anyone heard of BTS? In my isolated little world, I honestly don't know who I can suppose has heard of this K-pop boy group that seems to have been lighting the pop world on fire the past few . . . years (sorry, that's a totally gratuitous link to a group that I do like, but at least is a BTS song with an appropriate title)? And I mean globally, heading all the way east from Korea until it meets the west, and all the way west until it meets the east.

It's a given western pop is global; no matter where you go in the world, everyone seems to know iconic western pop acts, whether they suck or not (I wouldn't know about now, but in my rock-oriented youth there was a disdainful assumption of more suck than not). Pop acts around the world, including K-pop, emulate and aspire to be like western pop acts. Has BTS breached that rarefied air and become one of them? I honestly don't know. I read the K-pop newsfeed headlines about impressive milestones they've achieved in global popularity and exposure (they spoke at the U.N.?! wut?!) and records they keep breaking, but are they anywhere near being an enduring household name? Do people recognize their name in the entertainment section or can't avoid hearing about them even if they know nothing about K-pop and couldn't care less? 

But here I am, a supposed K-pop fan and I know near nothing about them just because I'm not into the boy groups. I'm not chagrined that it's a boy group that's breaking through after multiple high-profile failures of girl groups through the years to gain attention in the U.S. mainstream. Even though I'm not into the boy groups, I have no doubt the quality of the songwriting and production is just as good as the girl groups I'm into (the above link is the first time I listened to a BTS song, and it notably didn't suck. I could listen to it multiple times and even pinpoint what I think is cool in both the audio and the choreo (I just prefer to watch LOONA doing it)). I don't doubt they're exciting and fun to watch if you're into that sort of thing boy groups. Despite what my CD mixes reflect, I'm under the impression K-pop boy groups are much bigger business economically than the girl groups.

My 2018 mix CDs (of the mix-CDs-of-every-year-of-my-life project) are par for the course since about 2012 and are all K-pop and two CDs. I thought it was bad when there was so much stuff being released that I couldn't satisfactorily contain everything killing me to leave off on a single CD. Now it's just ridiculous and I could easily fill a third CD (whoa! déjà vu), but that's somewhere I'll never go, even if these are just for me. Actually, because they're just for me. A third collection would need a specifiable justification, the likes of which I can't even imagine for K-pop.

I think this is just normal now, but I struggled for months, gnashing my teeth and pulling my hair (at least taking off my slipper and repeatedly hitting my head with it), compiling song lists and track sequences, often ending in frustration and whimpering feelings of futility and impotence, trying to carve out a flow and segues that I felt worked. Segues and sequence flow are what make a mix for me (says the person who listens to a 20,000+ collection on SHUFFLE. It isn't always pretty). But then suddenly I'll have one or two magical sessions moving songs around in iTunes playlists and suddenly all the problems go away (not really, it's more of a forced satisfaction considering there was enough good stuff to fill a third CD) and something comes together and "by George, I think I've got it!". Where I had nothing the day before, suddenly I have something. Pretty!*

Disc 1: (zip download)

1. favOriTe (LOOΠΔ)
2. Mi-myo Mi-myo (Lovelyz) (full-stage camcorder)
3. What is Love? (Twice) (unofficial stage mix)
4. Bad Boy (Red Velvet)
5. Green Apple (Berry Good)
6. Hurry Up (Sohee (Elris))
7. WooWoo (DIA)
8. The Blue Bird (April)
9. Crush (Weki Meki)
10. DKDK (Dugeum Dugeum) (fromis_9) (music video (because cats))
11. Lady (EXID)
12. Don't Let Me Know (Ko Sungmin)
13. Burning (Rothy)
14. Punk Right Now (HYO (SNSD (Hyoyeon)))
15. Baby Boo (feat. KissN, Mint (ex-Tiny-G)) (High Soul)
16. Is Who (Minseo)
17. Dududu (AoA) (lyric video) (official audio)
18. See Sea (Hyolyn (ex-Sistar))
19. Let You Go (Yubin (ex-Wonder Girls)) (lyric video) (official audio)
20. I'm Your Girl? (Khan) (although this is how people from my generation read their name; don't know if their agency CEO is a Star Trek fan)
21. Remember Me (Oh My Girl)
22. The Same Memory (Kassy) (lyric video) (official audio)
23. I Wish (Baek Ah Yeon) (official audio)
24. Masquerade (WJSN - Cosmic Girls) (lyric video) (official audio)

Disc 2:
1. I Mean (UNI.T)
2. Oh! My Mistake (April)
3. #Cookie Jar (Red Velvet)
4. Wind Flower (Mamamoo)
5. Milkshake (Flavor (Fanatics))
6. Travel (Bolbbalgan4)
7. Rendezvous 18.6y (yyxy (LOOΠΔ)) (lyric video) (audio only)
8. Heroine (Sunmi (ex-Wonder Girls))
9. Fanci (Girlkind)
10. Love Bomb (fromis_9) (choreography video)
11. Twenty Something (Song Juhee (Hello Venus (Alice)))
12. Twilight (Oh My Girl)
13. Jealousy (Nara (Asha))
14. Dressroom (Primary x Anda)
15. Sullae (Rothy)
16. Dear (Gugudan) (lyric video) (official audio)
17. Yes or Yes (Twice)
18. Hi High (LOOΠΔ) (choreography video) (live)
19. Save Me, Save You (WJSN - Cosmic Girls)
20. Once Love Begins (Kassy)
21. LaTaTa ((g)i-dle)
22. Daydream (Lovelyz) (lyric video) (official audio)

The lyric videos are something new in the past few years, made by media-savvy international/bilingual fans, and they seem to not be getting flagged for copyright violations. Have agencies despite their corporate mindset accepted the value of international fans and their desire to know the lyrics or practice Korean (not me on either of those points)? Doubt it, but I have no idea, but as long as they're not getting taken down, I'll link them for the audio files. And I might note that one of my original criteria for K-pop fandom was that I never look up the lyrics (assuming it's a lot of stupid, banal shit about löve and broken hearts). It's actually not all bad (unlike western pop, whose lyrics which I can understand are usually what make me turn it off relatively quickly).

2017 mix CDs

I've been reading through John's "WTF? I've got cancer?" Blog I found by someone with terminal cancer. *spoiler alert* . . . It doesn't end well. At least that's what I'm assuming considering the title of his final post. I haven't read the later posts so I don't yet know how exactly it all ends, because once I read the premise of the blog and then seeing it was quite finite, I decided to go straight to the beginning and read through it chronologically as it chronicles his discovery of the cancer in spring 2014 and goes until his final post in September 2016. 

The reason for reading the whole thing is to see how this one person experiences death impending. In that regard, I'm just a poseur so this gives me a chance to compare and reflect on whether I'm really on that path and realization. I think it's fair to say I keep death and related concepts (dying, dead, mortality, finality, tie-dyeing, existence) front and center of my being, but I don't know if I've really been tested viscerally. Actually, to think about it, that's among the stupidest things I've ever said about myself, but forcing myself to doubt myself is a way of keeping grounded. I'm decidedly not dying of cancer, nor anything like a train arriving at its terminal.

Reading the blog, I remind myself to have sympathy and not lose sight of what he was dealing with, which is not hard to do. But I also have to make an effort to read it just as it is for what it is, and not treat it as an ordinary piece of writing, i.e., not reading it critically or analytically and what it's not or what I want it to be. There are things I couldn't help. I try to suppress my editor habit triggered by the typos, the travelogue portions leave much to be desired, the handyman mundanities are among the curious things he focuses on while undergoing treatment. Nothing egregious.

But I wonder why I attach to this person's blog. There might be plenty of cancer blogs that are well-written and philosophical and that generate genuine sympathy. This person . . . oh. Is a lot like me? Or from what he writes, I interpret him being a lot like me, even if he wasn't. There are aspects about him that I recognize might be similar to aspects of how I am. How's that? 

At one point he said that no one would describe him as "kind". Who describes themselves like that? In my most self-deprecating moments, I think I would be insulting people in my past if I stated none of them would describe me as kind. But that's how he feels or sees himself. And no one in my present tense could describe me as kind, because there isn't anyone here to describe me. Solitary as I am, I don't feel like a kind or generous person. He describes himself as socially avoidant and a loner. He's a divorcé. He adopts a cat that takes almost 4 months to get used to him (animals and babies don't lie in judging character). I don't know what to make of the paucity of comments (maybe meaningful responses happen directly). There's indication he's probably Republican.

Basically the feeling I'm reading – and may easily be completely wrong – is that he's not the most popular or likable person in his social circles? And looking around me, neither am I, and I'm not even Republican. I'm not judging him, I'm just wondering why his blog, with all the problems I have with it, is the one I find worth reading. Maybe if his blog was life-affirming in the face of impending death and deep and profound and touching and sensitive and had trended and had hundreds of thousands of followers and Oprah's attention and comments sections packed with strangers offering support and advice and services and ice cream, I just wouldn't have been interested. That's just me. I'm reading this person's blog. I think maybe we're similarly porcupine-ish with odd quirks and perspectives that other people don't quite get and would prevent trending or Oprah. How's that? And it's not even whether or not he's likable or popular, since how he is socially may basically be his choice.

I'm still reading through the blog, but I am within his last year. I don't know whether it will get impassioned or dramatic towards the end nor whether there will be insights or breakthroughs or crying. I will say that his writing does improve (as do his travelogues) over the course of the blog from being fairly straight-forward utilitarian to becoming even funny and witty (in a grim, dark, morbid way); perhaps a by-product of recognizing his peeps are reading and don't want to be bored to death (misery doesn't necessarily love company when you're dying of cancer?). 

marking time: summer 2019

The bugs. My room is being infested by these teeny-tiny bugs that are harmless enough in themselves, but they appear and swarm and move psychotically hither-thither and higgledy-piggledy really, really fast on the floor and various surface areas, and it's all I can do to smush them under a fingertip. They're really no more than specks of life with the residue of their deaths not much worth even a swipe of a tissue. *sigh* Not killing other living beings is ideal under mindfulness practice, and here I am massacring what I hope is an entire population, genocide I hope. Not the best item to have on one's karmic resumé, but let's keep things in perspective. In fewer numbers I'd leave them alone. They'll show up in a particular area and I can easily kill a dozen or more in a go. They're easy to spot despite their size (and my degraded eyesight) and easy to kill with a jabbing fingertip. They're fast but they're too tiny to be tactical (even if they make it to cover, they'll just run out into the open in a few seconds), and being fast just means it's amazing they covered those centimeters so quickly. They're fast enough that sometimes it takes a few jabs to get them, but they're going nowhere fast and still basically sitting ducks. I just had an image of ducks sitting in meditation.

The heat. Not only is this a hell-hot summer, but very possibly the hottest, helliest hell-hot summer since I coined "hell-hot summer" as distinct from regular merely blazing hot Taipei summers. I swear I recently experienced the absolute hottest day in my time here in Taipei. I'm putting strict limits on how far away I'll go on bike lest I risk a heat-related crisis. My instinct for self-preservation (or not feeling like crap, rather) is strong enough to recognize when I need to get into an air-conditioned space now, but sometimes just getting around on bike will be such that I'm feeling the effects long after getting into air-conditioning and hydrating.

"Rogue One: A Star Wars Story". HBO finally got this years after release, and I didn't expect anything of it. I've never been huge on the Star Wars thing after the original first two movies "Star Wars" (none of that "episode IV" or "New Hope" bullshit) and "The Empire Strikes Back", which were so good that even people over age 16 don't seem to realize how bad "Return of the Jedi", rounding out the original trilogy, is. Curiosity had me peeking at the three prequels: the first was terrible, annoying and boring (not  necessarily in that order), the second was worse and unwatchable, the third was also unwatchable but at least hilarious in the bits that I did see (you couldn't re-make it as a comedy and have it be funnier (sadly)). "The Force Awakens" I initially held in favor, but after re-watching ultimately gave it a thumbs down. Not terrible, watchable, just not very good.

"Rogue One: A Star Wars Story": excellent! I have nothing to say about it that might be at all relevant, except that I was impressed and amazed at how fresh it was and how cleverly it wove in elements of the chronologically subsequent "Star Wars" that are recognizable without being pandering or corny. Aside from C-3PO and R2-D2, who having just a single gratuitous shot at the rebel base qualifies as pandering and corny. If they included them at all, they should have gone at least a little more into how they ended up in the battle and on Leia's blockade runner in "Star Wars", otherwise just leave them out. For that matter, why Leia was sent into a battle that looked like a suicide mission should've been addressed more than it was, but that might risk requiring more screen time for a character being rendered youthful by CGI (RIP Carrie Fisher).

I mistakenly thought the entire movie was based on a single line in "Star Wars", something on the lines of a rebel general grimly saying during the briefing before the attack on the Death Star, "Many people died to get us this information", but a web search indicates that line is actually from "Return of the Jedi" (It was apparently a Manny "Both Hands" (intergalactic gangster?) who died to get the information on the Death Star, mk. II (because once your first Death Star is destroyed, of course, the logical, albeit unoriginal, course of action is to build another)). But it would've been incredible if that line was in "Star Wars" because it's such a cliché, throwaway line. "Rogue One" would've affirmed it was not a throwaway line at all, but hard-hitting testament and recognition to the sacrifice and courage of those characters. People re-watching "Star Wars" later would get to that line and know he's referring to the events of "Rogue One" and start bawling. Or not. In "Return of the Jedi" it's just a cliché, throwaway line. 

weather we like it or not

Woof. Last week of July, I think I can declare 2019 as a hell hot summer, and not merely a regular blazing hot Taipei summer. The only thing that mitigates this veritable blast furnace of a summer is reports from other places of incredible, assfault-melting heatwaves with temperatures that exceed the numbers here. Supposedly it's hotter in southern France as Le Tour makes its way to the Alps, with riders in the peloton literally dripping water as ice that they've stuffed down the backs of their jerseys melts. My brother confirms reports of the heatwave in the U.S. northeast ("yea, it's been a little warm") after I suggested it might be as hot as it is here (whoops, he actually called it "crazy hot", -ed.). Korean vloggers suffering in their heat also make me wonder if I'm just being a whiny li'l bitch about the heat here. That's until I see stats on Weather Underground like Taipei being "98° (feels like 114°)" (emphasis mine, but they should put them on their website). Martha Focker. France can eat its foie gras liver with its 40°+ Celsius. And we probably have at least another month of this with September bringing not a whole lotta relief.

I was kinda hoping that the 10-day forecast continually showing afternoon showers every day was just hyperbole, or obligatory for the summer in a "be prepared" sorta way, but they're quite literal this year. The past few years I've been spoiled by a lot of dry weather despite similar-looking forecasts. This year is more like the first few years after I moved here 13 years ago. I was always complaining about the rain and even kept record of how many days in a row it rained just to validate my misery. One summer when I had late afternoon class it was exactly like this. I would ride my bike to school in perfect merely blazing hot weather (pre-hell hot), but during class it would squall like we were under a waterfall, but then the sky would be clearing by the end of class with orange sunlight glistening off the asphalt and through drops falling from trees. I'm currently trying to adjust how I go about my days so that I can be home by the time the clouds change from fluffy-against-blue skies to Voldemort-approved ominous.

Ah, it all comes back to me now, that's when I discovered chocolate really helped whatever the feeling it was that came over me when it rained – tension, antsy, low-level anxiety. It was like in that Harry Potter book/movie after our hero was attacked by death-eaters(?) and a suspicious-looking adult kept giving him something saying, "eat this, it'll make you feel better". Turns out he was a new professor but you still didn't know if he could be trusted or if he was bent on bringing harm to the boy. Turns out it was just chocolate, well-known among muggles, not so much in the wizarding world. Go fig, maybe not entertaining enough as far as sweets go. But when it rains and I get that feeling, I pull out the chocolate and tell myself, "eat this, it'll make you feel better". And I swear it does.

I don't know why, but for the past few weeks I'd been thinking about sending my second older brother a birthday greeting email this year. He's the one who has de facto cut contact, whatever that means. I don't know if it's just with me or if it's the same with other family members, meaning he won't contact them first, but will respond appropriately if contacted. He'll behave appropriately if they visit, but only visits them in the course of going somewhere else. Maybe he never calls them to chat. Maybe he does? Does his family make family visits just to visit (the distance is from Philly to NY)? I just don't know, I have no idea what their relationship is. I only know that I'm persona non grata. And that's it, I don't know the reason or the feeling behind it or if even there is a feeling behind it or just a cold decision he made that he'll be courteous if I happen to be present (physically or electronically), but otherwise he wants nothing to do with me.

But since I "just don't know", maybe I'm not being fair in making any uninformed assessment just based on what it sorta kinda looks like feels like to me. I don't know what he actually thinks. And after all, he is the brother I've said has complete immunity in whatever he does in regard to me, I will always consider him . . . positively. I'll always say he was a good older brother. That goes with my oldest brother now, too. 

<real time>OK, I sent the damn birthday greeting email</real time>

Writing all that above made me say 'just send the damn birthday greeting while it's still his birthday over there' (hour'n half left). But now I'm gonna continue this post and regret sending it, because the assumption when starting this post was that I didn't send him the greeting and go on about why. 

But now there's no more point to this post since I sent the greeting; that changes everything. I was gonna mention my old idea of don't be something to someone when you're considering removing yourself being here permanently. The way things are going I'll be around for at least the next 500 years, but my everyday is always asking and looking for when and why not now.

I was gonna mention that our status is actually such that we can drop an email out of the blue and it wouldn't be a stunner. And now that I've sent the greeting, no, he won't be stunned by it. He may or may not reply to it. I'm guessing he'll neither be pleased nor displeased by it. It just is what it is. If he wants to respond, he will; if he doesn't want to, he doesn't have to. Full immunity, he can do no wrong. 

I was gonna mention that his birthday occurs during the Tour de France and he's a true cycling buff, so I could mention the tour in the email and it wouldn't be awkward just saying happy birthday and other generic pleasantries about the weather. And I did write briefly about the tour since there have been fireworks to get excited about.

That's so funny how I started this post with a good idea of where it would go, but then once the central assumption disappeared midway, I'm having trouble remembering what I was going to write about. Story of my life? Par for the course? Cliché?

I don't know why, but for the past few weeks I'd been thinking about sending my second older brother a birthday greeting email this year. But even while considering it, I knew I wouldn't actually send it. It was just good intentions; an exercise in sibling relations that in recent years might reasonably be described as "estranged" or "non-existent". My oldest brother and I still send obligatory birthday greetings, although this year he didn't even respond to mine with the obligatory thanks, the wife and kids and the weather are fine. My second oldest brother, we haven't at all in years. 

I think maybe I was considering it in more of a "because I can" way, that whatever frost, if one can call it that, has descended upon our siblingship, it's not of the nature that neither of us couldn't drop a random birthday greeting any year it dawned on us to do so. It was a mental exercise in potential and possibility; when you think of doing something you don't ordinarily do and can think of dozens of reasons why not, but then do it because . . . why not? It's a left turn, and my life paradigm when I was much younger was "always take the left turn". The left turn is the unknown, the adventure, the risk. Going straight is safe and boring, predictable. 

But that's potential, this is reality, and reality says don't send it; there's nothing wrong with safe, boring and predictable. There's no actual, active relationship between us. What would I be doing or saying by breaking radio silence and sending it? Hey, I'm here? Hey, I've been thinking about you? Neither of us cares about that sorta shit and might lead to further unexpected, unwanted consequences and communications. And besides, my current life purpose is to land all of my relations exactly where ours is, why would I mess with that? If I manage to commit suicide, people should have to wonder when was the last time they heard from me, and that's supposed to be the primary descriptive of our relationship.

Whatever, I'm just gonna send the damn birthday greeting email.

It's not like I have time for TV, but I watched HBO's 6-part miniseries based on Joseph Heller's Catch-22 and despite my early enthusiasm for a new adaptation and willingness to give wide latitude in considering it, I hated it by the end, forcing myself unenthusiastically to watch the last 3 episodes (after enthusiastically watching the first three episodes before realizing something was off). It was quite a disappointment.

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned before that I watched the 1970 Mike Nichols film in high school and absolutely loved it. Then I read the book and absolutely loved that even more. It's one of my favorite books from high school days. Then I re-watched the film sometime later and didn't love it quite so much. It just didn't compare to the book, although I think if I watched it now I'd be much more forgiving, giving it wide latitude, especially since this mini-series showed me how badly an adaptation can go wrong and totally miss the point of a work.

Given the nature of the source material, wide latitude needs to be given to any adaptation. There's a loose plot which isn't particularly important and mainly serves as a foil to describe and embellish, chapter-by-chapter, upon all these oddball characters and oddball situations that paints a decidedly non-oddball context (WWII) into something oddball and absurd in itself. Horrible incidents occur and are described in gory detail, injustices that make the blood boil are committed, but all are balanced with the word most often used to describe the book: satire. There's a joke in these pages, the absurdity and irony of war would make us laugh if it wasn't such a horrible reality. As satire, the work is supposed to make us laugh.

The mini-series goes fundamentally wrong by ignoring the satire (NB: an adaptation of a satire doesn't automatically make it a satire). It focuses on that not-so-important loose plot and treats it as a straight-forward, chronologically linear drama with literal depictions of events in the book while missing ironic and ridiculous subtexts. There is little to nothing funny about this mini-series, nothing absurd, ironic, satirical, sardonic or tongue-in-cheek. There's no tension between what's reasonable and unreasonable. There's nothing witty in the dialogue or the twists on logic. There's a lot that seems curious and weird because they're still using the satirical source material but are way off in rendering it and can't point to satire to explain it. Like when you try to crack a joke in a situation where no one feels like laughing.

The mini-series creates consequences to action where there should be absurdity, and just makes the protagonist loathsome, selfish, irresponsible, cowardly and immoral. Immoral? Modern wars are all pretty much immoral, but the mini-series seems to point to this one person as the epitome of immoral, when he's supposed to be the hero and one of the few who makes sense in all his absurdity. Confronted by an absurd situation, someone who is even more absurd sometimes makes the most sense. Instead, it's possible in the mini-series to count how many people literally die, directly or indirectly, as a result of "Yo-Yo"'s petty, short-sighted and self-serving actions and then witness his complete lack of remorse for his agency. Or maybe this mini-series is much more clever than I'm giving it credit for and it's saying something about the U.S. now. Probably not. Actually from the way they sequenced scenes, I'd say it was fully intentional that the viewer draw the lines of consequence pointing to Yossarian's culpability in many of the deaths of his comrades. The purpose for doing that eludes me because I just ended up disgusted with the guy and not caring what happens to him (the exact opposite from the book).

However I could be wrong. The reviews are good, although many seem to be doing the limbo to praise it and none have convinced me. I admit the look of the mini-series is very aesthetic and the performances and technical aspects decent. I'm not panning the series for what's not there (I think every reviewer did what I did when the mini-series was announced and re-read the entire 400+ pages book). There's so much in the book that they had full license over what they chose to use and what they left out. Although with so much material in the book, I fail to see why they had to add things that weren't in the book. Actually, almost one entire episode (focusing on Milo Minderbinder) I don't remember even being in the book except as straight narration.

I wonder if another reason for the good reviews might be that there's not a single reviewer, I shouldn't wonder, who hadn't read the book and they're really gushing about the book. Or maybe they hadn't watched the whole series yet when they reviewed it.

marking time

So I think the seasonal Plum Rains (lit. 梅雨) of May-June have come and gone, and methinks they were probably quite average this year. There have been weak years recently when they weren't all that prominent and strong years when it just rained for weeks on end with no small effect on seasonally affected nerves and lots of chocolate consumption to deal with it (I think there are people who argue the actual physiological benefits of chocolate, opposed to people who argue that chocolate just makes happy). And I think I've discovered that a hallmark of the Plum Rains is their unpredictability against weather forecasts. Has anyone else noticed how accurate weather forecasts have gotten in the past few years? In the course of my life I've always thought of forecasts as general guidelines as to what to expect. Even during my time in Taipei, the guideline has dictated "always carry an umbrella". But for however many years I've noticed forecasts to be surprisingly accurate within hours, with completely wrong forecasts to be the exception rather than the expectation.

Not so much during the Plum Rains. Advanced satellite and model analysis technology still can't factor in whatever the conditions are that make the Plum Rains so very unpredictable. I've had to walk my bike home miserable in the pouring rain twice already because the forecast and my looking up at the sky before heading out both missed it. More times than that I've left my bike home and nary a drop would fall from the ominous cloud cover. I think the Plum Rains are done now, and even with rain constantly and consistently in the afternoon weather forecast (we call it "summer"), there's a certain amount of confidence possible on whether it will actually rain or not in the next few hours I'll be out based on the rain percentage forecast and looking up at the sky.  

So it's summer, and that means it's hot. I haven't determined yet if this is a "hell hot" summer or just a "normal blazing hot" Taipei summer. Truth to tell, I haven't been paying much attention to my environs outside my apartment. I've been feeling unusually cut off and isolated – which isn't necessarily a bad thing, just a descriptive – for whatever variety of possible reasons. I even stopped "forcing" myself to go on 20-mile rides. The Plum Rains contributed to that at first, but then I just didn't feel like it when it started drying up. Once I want or feel the need, I'll go. I wonder if I'll feel like it after the Tour de France starts this weekend. I don't know why, but I just got the inkling to follow le Tour this year. Maybe it's a feeling of wanting to connect with something outside that's familiar.

It's not like I have time for TV, especially since my eyesight has degraded to the point that my laptop screen is too small and I use my flat screen TV as my main computer monitor. I can never just turn on the TV and have it on in the background (like Mandarin news to keep the language in my ears or movies I'm not sure I'm really interested in) while I stare at the laptop. It's one or the other, if I switch to TV, I'm watching a specific program or movie. I do not miss the waste of time that was channel-surfing. So I don't know what I'll do in following the Tour de France. I just know I won't watch the whole thing. Probably not even whole stages. And I should remind myself that watching cycling is inherently boring. You need the passion for the sport before you can watch it, although I'm sure there's an argument for that applying to all sports. Fair 'nuff. I'm gonna stick with the excuse that I'm trying to feel a connection with something about my life from before, despite it being useless, meaningless and futile. That got dark real quick. 

Actually, my iTunes collection broke the 20,000 files mark recently. Last month let's say. I've mentioned benchmarks I've broken in the past and thought about mentioning 20,000 when it happened, but it's actually a bit of a conundrum I'm a bit conflicted about. Who am I kidding? It's a total mess. 

You can never have too much music, I recently heard someone quip.

I disagree, you can. I do and I can describe what it means to have too much music. It becomes a total mess. It's such a mess I don't think I can describe how it all happened in any sane, rational-sounding way. Basically I'm a serial music chaser and hoarder, and it's pretty much gotten out of hand. The main basic problem is that there is a ton of music in my collection that I deem excellent – music that comes up on shuffle play and I don't have any thought of removing it – but I don't really "know" it.

It partly hearkens back to the regrettable hard-drive dumps circa. 2009-10. I think my brother had given me a 500 GB external hard-drive, and the brilliant but misguided idea dawned on me to hook it up to various music-loving friends' (I had friends?) computers and let them transfer whatever they deemed worthy onto it. I got a lot of music that way, and, mind you, everything got reviewed before I put it in my collection, plenty of what they gave didn't make it. And a considerable amount eventually got taken off despite my initial approval.

And I'm not even going to talk about Limewire* and K-pop, except to say without K-pop, those hard-drive dumps may have been manageable. K-pop probably makes Limewire look like a drop in the lake. Let's just say that since breaking 20,000 files recently, it's already up to 20,117. No more than a handful of files are added every three days in my very geeky system of listening and adding, but it's a constant drip-drip that has been going on for years.

Years of constant process has led to this collection of over 20,000 files, most of which I think deserves to be there, but quite a lot which I don't really "know". I think it's good, I like listening to it, but I don't know a whole lot about them. How many albums does that band have? Name some. Name one. Name some of their songs. Name one! Band members' names? My answers would be woefully deficient. Do I consider myself a fan? Using the criteria of bands I'm very much a fan of, I'd have to say no.

Then what the hell are they doing in my collection? Would I even notice if they were removed? Why don't I get rid of them? It doesn't work that way. Easier said than done. He hit me first. And I am constantly vigilant for files to remove. I have two folders named "Removed from iTunes" and "Removed without prejudice" (I'm a hoarder, I rarely delete files permanently). The "without prejudice" is a borrowed legal expression and that folder is for music I removed for whatever reason I felt at the time, but it wasn't because it's bad (and could theoretically be reinstated because it was removed without prejudice). The criteria for removing files is ever-shifting and is usually done spontaneously.

I think I just hit the geek-overload point in this post which demands that I cease and desist. It's such an over-bloated, neurotic mess that would cover topics such as my hoarding history, my listening habits/procedure, the growth of K-pop over the past 10 years, the "great unlistened wasteland" in my iTunes collection, etc., etc. It isn't pretty.

Needless to say, none of this is any big deal. It really doesn't occupy a whole lot of mental space, and despite trying to come up with strategies and criteria to trim down cull swaths of my collection, it's more of a background mosquito consideration. In the meantime I'm enjoying the listening, I'm hardly suffering. Except in the Buddhist way that I'm still acting out a delusion, which has karmic implications if I'm attached in any way. I don't think I am, or I tell myself I don't think I am. I'm aware this is just games I'm playing with myself and anything can change in a heartbeat and none of it will matter. Even the way I listen to music is heading towards obsoletion. What did I do before iTunes and iPods? What did I do before iPod Shuffle for that matter? What will I do after my iPod Shuffles die? I'll adjust. And breathe a sigh of relief.

* It's just a matter of time when no one will remember Limewire. It was a Napster-like file-sharing service that was widely used for downloading music, but almost immediately forgotten once it got shut down for copyright reasons. No mourning, no despondence. No nostalgia. It was great when it was there, no one cared when it was gone. Like my life, lol!! (I was thinking that had to be a metaphor for something🤣).

I'm in my third day of a non-digestion/intestinal-related dull ache in my abdomen. It's merely uncomfortable and I wouldn't even mention it if I hadn't recently written about having itchy palms and the surprising discovery that they may be symptomatic of liver problems. Like the itchy palms, I expect this ache to pass in short order, but I feel I should mark these things for posterity. In case anyone's interested in my posterior. 

And again, looking up what the ache might be a symptom of predictably led to liver problem sites, and the liver problem sites were inconclusive with some things that matched and others that didn't. The ache could get intense and occasionally becomes a backache, but that gets intermingled with cycling-related back pain which kept me off-bike for 2-3 days earlier this month. The pain didn't spread to my right shoulder. Other symptoms relate to appetite and inability to eat, but I had those symptoms years ago and nothing ever came out of it. I can now happily eat one meal a day with an optional but usually unnecessary snack from a convenient store. Zero weight loss, I'm sure. My diet and exercise don't explain my protruding stomach, which I described before as a paunch, but per the websites, yes this is more of a protrusion. It doesn't seem natural, like an alien is about to burst out of me. Or like I'm pregnant, which I suppose isn't so far different from an alien bursting out. On the other hand, my father also had a protruding stomach, so it could be genetic. On another hand (look ma, three hands!), he ate three meals a day and lived a sedentary lifestyle with minimal exercise that my mother forced upon him. He didn't drink, either.

Bottom line is that clinically I'd be considered a life-long heavy drinker I shouldn't wonder, if not an alcoholic, so at this point it's not a matter of if, but when. And now might as well be when, but even if now is when, I'm not going to get bent out of shape over it, seeing as I could've seen it coming from years ago, and whenever it does come, it could've come at any time during those however many years ago that I could have seen it coming. And if now isn't when and this ache disappears as I expect it will, well that's just the story of my life. Until it isn't.

It's hardly unexpected when the pitfalls of not having a teacher manifest, and I really don't mind it. It's good having to be careful and not be arrogant about not having a teacher/guru/master. I recognize the disadvantage at which I put myself by not having or looking for one, but I have my reasons that I've mentioned before. I opine there's a karmic basis for my attitude, and I also recognize the advantages of not having a teacher. Such as making mistakes. Lots of mistakes, but learning from them myself. 

For the past year and a half or so, I've been pretending to do "ear training", but for a while I've suspected that it's just been an excuse to listen to more K-pop. Basically I've been playing bass along with K-pop songs learning the root progressions and singing along with the root movements, concentrating on the intervals and trying to internalize and remember how they sound. Although I have noticed some progress, it's the laziest ear training possible.

Playing along with songs is marginally effective, if not useless. Admitting the real goal is to listen to more K-pop, the better way to pretend it's "ear training" is to not play along with a song, but rather listen to the movement and only play a note after hearing it. If you make a mistake guessing the interval, it's obvious and you know it, clap your hands. If you're playing along and make a mistake, you just kind of fudge over it and go on and there's zero mental correction. And playing along with a song, eventually I'll memorize the progression in my hands and my ear does nothing. Focusing on interval-to-interval, I force my ear to work and suddenly I'm making mistakes unless I learn the intervals aurally.

Real ear training would involve a better method that I would've found frustrating and boring (bored = not enough motivation to be a musician; frustration = not enough talent). None of this has any basis in reality, it's all theoretical musing; just an example of how I go about figuring things out for myself. 

I don't know how I feel about this second example since it's about sitting meditation, which I've been doing long enough that I've probably had this realization many times before. And it's the most basic thing, the first thing you learn about sitting. It's about focusing on breathing, and specifically about focusing on the tip of one's nose or the nostrils to concentrate the mind on the breathing in and breathing out.

What feels like a minor revelation recently was that you have to be tenacious about it, not lazy. A typical tendency might be to find it too difficult to continually focus on the breath without the mind wandering. The teaching is once you realize the mind is wandering, just clear out the thoughts and start over concentrating on breathing. Easy. Only to find the mind is wandering again within 20 seconds. It's even easier to eventually decide it's impossible and to just give up and let the mind wander and graze in the pasture.

Being tenacious, I think, is no small part of the method. It may be the only way to get something out of it. For a while, the main focus should be to tenaciously drag (I call it 'tenacious d') the mind back to the nose and the breathing. Forget about the focus on breathing and put that on the back-burner because the mind will start wandering again. Focus just on noticing it and bringing it back whether it's 30 seconds later or halfway through the sitting session. It doesn't matter that your mind has just spent 10 minutes running through an entire discourse about some inane news article you read or something someone said yesterday, just don't get frustrated or discouraged and focus on noticing it and start over. 

Although it's properly taught that nothing should be forced in sitting practice, it should also be emphasized that some sort of mastery of the method is eventually necessary. It may be the case that at some point it's too hard to keep the mind from wandering and it's frustrating to constantly try to rein it in. Then the teachings might say it's OK to let the mind wander, but it's not OK to just accept that permanently. Going back to working on the method is necessary. An example I've used before is that it's like learning how to ride up hills on bike. The first time you try riding up a hill, you're huffing and puffing and it's the hardest thing you've done since breakfast, and you strain and struggle and make it to the top and you're sweating and swear you'll never try that again. If you accept that and never try again, you won't find out that the next time you try it, it'll be easier and you'll be totally surprised how not hard it was to get to the top. 

What's more, tenacity has rewards. You will naturally be progressively successful at bringing the wandering mind back to the breathing, and something happens and it's almost automatic that the mind stabilizes and may start going deeper into states of concentration that might be confused with drowsiness, but might be the discursive mind fading out, or even heightened alertness and awareness, even getting to a near trance state.

I'm coming across this basic realization now, which is a bit woeful considering how long I've been sitting, but it very well may be I've come across this multiple times before. Having a teacher may have helped make it stick. There are the teachings written in books, but a skillful teacher would be able to expound on anything in the books, I've mentioned before. Maybe they don't write about being tenacious because that adds pressure and risks creating a mental goal for sitting where there shouldn't be any. But once practicing what's in the books, a teacher can guide a student to the tenacious-d according to what the student will respond to and without stress or goals.

Taking this concept into my current Vajrayana reading-inspired practice (i.e., not Vajrayana practice), I can have some confidence that I'm not completely going off the rails. Despite admonishments that a guru is necessary, I'm alright with the direction of my current practice, and even if it might take longer to land a particular concept or practice, I have reason to think I'll get it close to right eventually. Maybe I'm making excuses for not pursuing a guru. But maybe I'm right and a guru isn't strictly necessary as long as there's a sincere and dedicated (albeit mine being perhaps somewhat flaky) search and plenty of time to open up instinctively to the teachings and a healthy dose of critical self-doubt. And even inspired by Vajrayana, it's important to keep the core tenets in mind, first expounded in Theravadan Buddhism, which are that nothing whatsoever should be clung to as 'me' or 'mine', and that all practices should be in furtherance of reducing suffering.

Even if I were told by some mystical augur that I'm advanced enough that I would be guaranteed to attain enlightenment in this lifetime if I sought out a guru, I think I wouldn't do it. Because then enlightenment just became a goal to be attained, rather than a path to follow in order to learn and discover enlightenment as a reality. To seek a guru motivated by a guarantee of certain enlightenment would be an immediate failure for me. It's a paradox, a Catch-22, a test even. I'm totally open to the guru requirement, but it's just not for me in this lifetime. If that forecloses enlightenment in this lifetime, so be it. I have no problem with that.