Going into bookstores, I find that a popular item is the book of blank pages. Over the years this has been my favorite medium, and I started writing in such volumes many years ago when they were actually rare and somewhat difficult to find. Now these empty books are to be found everywhere, elaborately produced: simple to ornate covers, folios of gilded edges, ribbon bookmarks, and lined pages. In my opinion, the lined pages ruin the illusion of an emptiness waiting to be filled. The lines are reminiscent of spiral notebooks used in school, taking all the joy out of the creative fantasy. I always used the unlined pages and preferred a size that was easy to carry around at all times.
Sometimes I would attempt journaling on these empty sheaves of paper, but seldom completed the task. I have many such partial beginnings, many begun at the turn of the year. None of these journals were as sustained as this Blog, although the obstacle that blunted my efforts in this space at the new year was even then lethal to the imagination, which can at times be extremely fragile. Yet as I walk around Borders and Barnes and Noble, especially in their coffee sites, I see many young people logging in their journals, which possibly explains the market for such empty tomes. Apparently we must have new generations more obsessed with neatness and order, as the lined pages are no impediment to such embryonic inscribers.
My most successful feat with such empty media has been writing poems. A poem is such perfect content for this medium. For me the challenge is creating short works in which form and content are uncovered in the moment. There is a sense of discovery, of solving a challenge, unraveling the Gordian knot, which I do not cut like Alexander, but rather find some means to extricate the tangled cords. Language serves as a puzzle to be solved as the imagery evolves through an expanding awareness triggered by the words themselves.
The medium of choice to mark upon the page was the black ballpoint pen, preferably medium point...not blue, not green, not fine-tipped. The right pen on the right texture of paper was much like finding a grand piano of exquisite tone and touch on which to improvise. Each poem was a tacit and tactile discovery. The rules were simple. Since the poems are written in ink they are permanent etches in time. Once the lines are on the page they are fixed and permanent. Generally they are only one page in length. Here is a sample:
Shafts of light through stained glass
Collide in pools of color
On the cathedral floor;
Motes of dust stream through columns of light
Like tiny technicolor galaxies.
Silence, with its gaping jaw,
Exhales a smothering sigh
Obliterating everything unlike itself.
Eternity lurks in its own caricature
Evading Time in the womb-like cradle
Of the church,
Basking in the prismatic glances
Of stained-glass windows.
Posting on the Internet is quite a different medium, but for me it has similar elements of surprise and satisfaction as a work is uncovered. Not all posts are equally successful or revealing. The process is quite different than the mechanics of paper and pen, but one gains the advantages of fonts and color, substitutes for texture. The texture of the digital screen is extremely monotonous and dull, despite the dazzling color and animation. Even though many have predicted that books will disappear into the digital medium, we are creatures of texture. We need the tactile satisfaction produced by flipping through the pages of books, magazines, and newspapers. Digital domination by singular visual supremacy is not yet a fait accompli.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Must the Winter End So Soon?
I have been reading Mark Helprin's Winter's Tale, an epic novel that pays homage to New York City and is inhabited by characters who come in and out of the narrative much as do the characters in Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale. I have made it a slow read on purpose, savoring the wit and wisdom of an author who is deeply immersed in this city by the sea, and understands it even more than Pete Hamill. Pete Hamill's Forever is an epic novel of New York City, an impressive achievement that left me breathless. Even now as I write about it, I want to read it again.
But Mark Helprin's Winter's Tale rises to an even higher level. Somehow he has managed to merge realism and fantasy, creating characters whose essence is ultimately shaped by the crucible of the city that challenges and nourishes their existence. It is a perfect read for celebrating the delight and destructive power of winter. The frigid air of winter brings clarity, etching the city and the surrounding Hudson countryside in crystalline perfection, enabling us to see further and deeper into the soul of an energy that binds us together as one.
Outside, as I write, temperatures are moderating. The days are getting longer, and I feel compelled to speed up my reading of Helprin's masterpiece, for it is a book to be savored in the deepest chill of winter. I came across a review by Bobby Matherne written in 2003, who apparently felt that the book should be read in summer:
I was both amazed and distressed that Mr. Matherne describes the flaw of the novel as celebrating criminals and criminality:
Suddenly Mr. Matherne, rather than reviewing a novel, is lecturing us with depressingly moralizing drivel. The truth is that Helprin's understanding of the dark side of human activities illuminates the moments of liberation, when an underlying moral sense comes to the fore, transforming characters, redeeming them, or helping us understand their presence in the larger scheme of things. At least the reviewer in the New York Times got it right:
But Mark Helprin's Winter's Tale rises to an even higher level. Somehow he has managed to merge realism and fantasy, creating characters whose essence is ultimately shaped by the crucible of the city that challenges and nourishes their existence. It is a perfect read for celebrating the delight and destructive power of winter. The frigid air of winter brings clarity, etching the city and the surrounding Hudson countryside in crystalline perfection, enabling us to see further and deeper into the soul of an energy that binds us together as one.
Outside, as I write, temperatures are moderating. The days are getting longer, and I feel compelled to speed up my reading of Helprin's masterpiece, for it is a book to be savored in the deepest chill of winter. I came across a review by Bobby Matherne written in 2003, who apparently felt that the book should be read in summer:
Actually most of the scenes take place in winter, not just one winter, but many winters. All the action outdoors takes place in the middle of extreme cold -- the Hudson River is frozen solid all the way from the ocean to its source. Helprin has written a paean to New York City and a love song to winter. Not the bitter cold, desolate winters when everyone huddles inside for warmth, but a vibrant, active winter full of evocative scenes of festive block parties on ice, ice-boating on large lakes, ice skating on frozen rivers, and midnight silvery sleigh rides bouncing over snowy hillocks or gliding silently over glassy smooth ice surrounded by quaint candle-lit Dutch villages along the fictional Lake of the Coheeries near the headwaters of the Hudson. This novel makes great summer reading as it will keep you in a perpetual chill as you read it.On the contrary, a winter read takes you through the chill of winter as though you were on the greatest adventure of your life. It is a book for winter, for celebrating both its magical and destructive powers, and while reading it you experience a different season, one that whisks you away on the winds of winter as though you could fly through the storms and blizzards with those whose warmth wraps you in a cocoon of imagination, rich safe-havens rescuing you from the oblivion that lurks on the other side of this frigid realm. If you haven't read it, set it aside for next winter, and begin reading it in a tavern, drinking a tankard of ale as you savor the warmth within, while watching the snow blowing into drifts outside your window.
I was both amazed and distressed that Mr. Matherne describes the flaw of the novel as celebrating criminals and criminality:
If the book has a flaw, it's the constant thievery motif. Peter is a criminal, Pearly is a criminal, most of the people Peter meets are criminals or began as one. ... The author treats criminality as if it adds light to the city, when in truth it adds only darkness, as does every form of immorality. The polishing of the lights that criminals do is with dirty rags that obscure and obstruct the light; the red flashes they create are from burning down other people's property, and the lightning flashes are flashes from the muzzles of their murder weapons. In 1983 Helprin was creating celebrities out of criminals while it seems that the world today is creating criminals out of celebrities. Neither process brightens the world, but only darkens it with its immorality.
Suddenly Mr. Matherne, rather than reviewing a novel, is lecturing us with depressingly moralizing drivel. The truth is that Helprin's understanding of the dark side of human activities illuminates the moments of liberation, when an underlying moral sense comes to the fore, transforming characters, redeeming them, or helping us understand their presence in the larger scheme of things. At least the reviewer in the New York Times got it right:
Is it not astonishing that a work so rooted in fantasy, filled with narrative high jinks, and comic flights, stands forth centrally as a moral discourse? It is indeed... I find myself nervous, to a degree. I don't recall in my past as a reviewer, about failing the work, inadequately displaying its brilliance.I hear by the grapevine that we are due for another blast of Arctic air this weekend, perhaps a final fling of winter. I am halfway through the book, and I will have to hole up somewhere as this last surge of winter returns, fueling my attention and hurling me to the end of a book that I wish would never end, but must ...and too soon at that.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Daylight Savings Dwindling
So today we threw the daylight to the tail end of the day, supposedly to save energy, but the energy it takes to change the clocks and systems in our house already offsets any energy saved. I'm sure that there are others who, like the researchers at a university in California, find that there is no savings in electricity and that overall usage increases.
So we wonder why the media must raise concerns to the level of an alarm with dire warnings that the collapse of technological society is immanent. Isn't March Madness enough? Must we compound it by fumbling to set our watches and clocks? Where on earth is it all headed? Perhaps to the moon, whose friendly face seems to shine through even the most muddled of time changes, even as it inches further and further away from the earth each year. Try setting your clock to the moon in another 50,000 years!
For some reason this time-change loomed more devastatingly than the change of the century. Some were even prone to claim we were altering the Mayan calendar and accelerating our doom before 2012. Now we learn that for all our efforts, daylight is continuing to slip through our fingers. It is enough to make you reconsider the whole affair. Even Australia is contemplating making daylight savings time permanent in an effort to bolster its economy, encourage a baby boom, and defeat clock tampering once and for all.
But the most important news is that we are losing the energy battle. It appears that the more daylight we save, the more energy we consume. It's a helluva way to run a railroad --- which, by the way, used to be so reliable you could set your clock by it!
So we wonder why the media must raise concerns to the level of an alarm with dire warnings that the collapse of technological society is immanent. Isn't March Madness enough? Must we compound it by fumbling to set our watches and clocks? Where on earth is it all headed? Perhaps to the moon, whose friendly face seems to shine through even the most muddled of time changes, even as it inches further and further away from the earth each year. Try setting your clock to the moon in another 50,000 years!
For some reason this time-change loomed more devastatingly than the change of the century. Some were even prone to claim we were altering the Mayan calendar and accelerating our doom before 2012. Now we learn that for all our efforts, daylight is continuing to slip through our fingers. It is enough to make you reconsider the whole affair. Even Australia is contemplating making daylight savings time permanent in an effort to bolster its economy, encourage a baby boom, and defeat clock tampering once and for all.
But the most important news is that we are losing the energy battle. It appears that the more daylight we save, the more energy we consume. It's a helluva way to run a railroad --- which, by the way, used to be so reliable you could set your clock by it!
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Remembering Someone
As a child he was usually alone. His mother was a credit union manager and his father travelled a lot. He had a sister who was almost ten years older, so she was in a completely different world. He often marvelled at the mystery of her world as she seemed to be seldom around. When he was much younger, she was his baby-sitter, but now at around six years old, no one thought anything about his being left alone for a little while.
Yet, there were many moments of loneliness so intense that he found it unbearable. He would look into the night, straining at sounds and passing cars that might offer some rescue, but all passed by with dissonant indifference. Tears cut through his separateness, descending rivulets of absence, desolate and desperate. He stood in the silence and wished for something that was beyond his grasp, outside of his understanding, a vast distance shone like a remote continent, now lost and obscured by the haze and debris of Time.
Yet, there was a presence that made him distinctive. Everyone who met him later in life sensed a special source that nourished him like an inner fountain of awareness and resourcefulness. His aloneness was not a barrier, not a wall creating an unbreachable partition, but more like a vast gulf that invited many obscure and ingenious routes to his inner world. This gulf provided a means of mediation with his apparent detachment.
Some might say that his aloneness became his strength, if you can find strength in isolation. It was a strength for a different time, aloof, but waiting for ultimate strangers who would invade his defenses and harvest the richness of wonder and beauty that might emerge in mutual paths of discovery. It was a timeless isolation that could yield instantly to someone who possessed the linchpin to his secret world. There was his immediate world that everyone knew, but there was an alternate quietness waiting within that promised more than one could imagine. Such a sensibility needed the originality of outsiders, alien visitors who could read the invisible terrain.
Yet, there were many moments of loneliness so intense that he found it unbearable. He would look into the night, straining at sounds and passing cars that might offer some rescue, but all passed by with dissonant indifference. Tears cut through his separateness, descending rivulets of absence, desolate and desperate. He stood in the silence and wished for something that was beyond his grasp, outside of his understanding, a vast distance shone like a remote continent, now lost and obscured by the haze and debris of Time.
Yet, there was a presence that made him distinctive. Everyone who met him later in life sensed a special source that nourished him like an inner fountain of awareness and resourcefulness. His aloneness was not a barrier, not a wall creating an unbreachable partition, but more like a vast gulf that invited many obscure and ingenious routes to his inner world. This gulf provided a means of mediation with his apparent detachment.
Some might say that his aloneness became his strength, if you can find strength in isolation. It was a strength for a different time, aloof, but waiting for ultimate strangers who would invade his defenses and harvest the richness of wonder and beauty that might emerge in mutual paths of discovery. It was a timeless isolation that could yield instantly to someone who possessed the linchpin to his secret world. There was his immediate world that everyone knew, but there was an alternate quietness waiting within that promised more than one could imagine. Such a sensibility needed the originality of outsiders, alien visitors who could read the invisible terrain.
Monday, March 05, 2007
The Eloquent Silence
Words come, filling the blank pages. Music comes, emerging from the silence to the somethingness of tone and rhythm. Images emerge onto the empty canvas or on to the tape or film. It is as though the emptiness waits---solely for the purpose of being filled.
So I have thought that with these Blogs I could open an empty space, and the words would come and shape the moment, finding some pathway to the substance, an underlying isness waiting to be disclosed.
Silence is not the same as nothingness. Silence is the emptiness of creation poised on the verge of becoming. We come from the silence, from the beingness that contains awakening awareness.
I remember when I first discovered this (before the acknowledgment that I have always known). I lay dying on the floor and a woman named Viola, who had glided into our lives in a moment of need, cupped my face between her hands and called to me from the silence. I awoke into the presence of restored conscious awareness. Not only was I no longer dying, I found a source of creative flow, a fountain of ideas manifest as writing, music, performance, and visual imagination. In that instance from the silence I knew myself, suddenly aware that knowing was the nowing of the silence, and knew was the perpetual newness, the newing of the now. Even now, words fall short of the magnitude, the eloquent silence.
Viola had made the silence so tangible that for months afterwards I tried to grasp the somethingness of existence as a substance, a materiality I could hold in my hands, an illusion created by intense awareness. Somehow I sensed that this was what Einstein had discovered for all humanity---that energy was mass converted by the speed of light squared. The speed of light squared is consciousness, awareness converting substance from spirituality, giving birth to the true material of the cosmos, the very source of all that we are.
So I have thought that with these Blogs I could open an empty space, and the words would come and shape the moment, finding some pathway to the substance, an underlying isness waiting to be disclosed.
Silence is not the same as nothingness. Silence is the emptiness of creation poised on the verge of becoming. We come from the silence, from the beingness that contains awakening awareness.
I remember when I first discovered this (before the acknowledgment that I have always known). I lay dying on the floor and a woman named Viola, who had glided into our lives in a moment of need, cupped my face between her hands and called to me from the silence. I awoke into the presence of restored conscious awareness. Not only was I no longer dying, I found a source of creative flow, a fountain of ideas manifest as writing, music, performance, and visual imagination. In that instance from the silence I knew myself, suddenly aware that knowing was the nowing of the silence, and knew was the perpetual newness, the newing of the now. Even now, words fall short of the magnitude, the eloquent silence.
Viola had made the silence so tangible that for months afterwards I tried to grasp the somethingness of existence as a substance, a materiality I could hold in my hands, an illusion created by intense awareness. Somehow I sensed that this was what Einstein had discovered for all humanity---that energy was mass converted by the speed of light squared. The speed of light squared is consciousness, awareness converting substance from spirituality, giving birth to the true material of the cosmos, the very source of all that we are.
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Noticing
In teaching research, I find it sometimes helpful to bring it to a simple level of the act of noticing. Researchers are often people trained to notice certain things, and more recently we have opened that idea to noticing without the bias of certain things limiting our "gaze." Sometimes we just want to cast our net over the side and pull things up which we notice in some particular way, sometimes systematic, sometimes not. Intentionally intending the world is an acknowledgement of otherness.
So for me, noticing has been a metaphor for discovery. It is a special way of knowing. Now that I have coupled this with my new passion for fiction, I find that writers are a special breed of noticers. They notice for me. So do poets. Such noticings are like flash points of consciousness. They are incandescent. Illuminating. Because of them I also notice. Now we have new poets in filmmakers who also notice the world and conscious awareness through intense acts of imagination.
But from the wonderful details that these noticers have discerned in the reconstructions of their imaginations, I am learning that I too, need to stay more consciously alert to the moment. Now I watch instances with new intentional intensity. Such noticing seems to demand a way of capturing the essence of the noticed. Today this has become almost routine to the vocabulary of film where the continuum of Time is shaped in instances of discovery that are of the past and the present, and are shaped as much by a creative sensibility as by historical accuracy. The things we notice create new instances for noticing.
This has transformed my own engagement with Time. Every detail of every second is the rich content of experience. Nothing we do, see, taste, smell, hear, feel, or say is trivial. Somehow all is the substance of existence and serves to define what we are and what we are becoming. Sharing our noticing increases the substance of what is real for us, expands the universe. Even in our increasing understanding of the cosmos, we learn because we notice more and more. We create special instruments for noticing time and space with many different mechanical eyes, ears, noses, tongues, and hands, with many different filters---all recorded as "data."
Maybe that is what we are: noticers of time as infinite manifestations, recording the dimensions of the cosmos as conscious awareness. It comes down to ourselves as distinct distillations of awareness, eloquently articulating multiple universes in our myriad noticing of details of being and time.
So for me, noticing has been a metaphor for discovery. It is a special way of knowing. Now that I have coupled this with my new passion for fiction, I find that writers are a special breed of noticers. They notice for me. So do poets. Such noticings are like flash points of consciousness. They are incandescent. Illuminating. Because of them I also notice. Now we have new poets in filmmakers who also notice the world and conscious awareness through intense acts of imagination.
But from the wonderful details that these noticers have discerned in the reconstructions of their imaginations, I am learning that I too, need to stay more consciously alert to the moment. Now I watch instances with new intentional intensity. Such noticing seems to demand a way of capturing the essence of the noticed. Today this has become almost routine to the vocabulary of film where the continuum of Time is shaped in instances of discovery that are of the past and the present, and are shaped as much by a creative sensibility as by historical accuracy. The things we notice create new instances for noticing.
This has transformed my own engagement with Time. Every detail of every second is the rich content of experience. Nothing we do, see, taste, smell, hear, feel, or say is trivial. Somehow all is the substance of existence and serves to define what we are and what we are becoming. Sharing our noticing increases the substance of what is real for us, expands the universe. Even in our increasing understanding of the cosmos, we learn because we notice more and more. We create special instruments for noticing time and space with many different mechanical eyes, ears, noses, tongues, and hands, with many different filters---all recorded as "data."
Maybe that is what we are: noticers of time as infinite manifestations, recording the dimensions of the cosmos as conscious awareness. It comes down to ourselves as distinct distillations of awareness, eloquently articulating multiple universes in our myriad noticing of details of being and time.
Friday, February 23, 2007
Lost New York
I like walking the streets of New York. I can feel the presence of the past, and now the New York that has disappeared into Time seems even more vivid. I think I was first inspired by Stuyvesant Street, a little street that lingers from the days when Peter Stuyvesant was governor and located his estate there. St Mark's Place and Church were part of this estate, and Stuyvesant Street is still there--- the only remaining street running true east and west. To get to his estate you took the Bouwrie road which a few miles later became the road to Boston as you entered the wilderness that then began below 14th street.
Beneath my feet as I walk the streets of lower Manhattan, the past has been buried in the debris of time. Looking at the devastation of the World Trade Center area, I reflect that this exact same ground was the scene of the Great Fire of 1776 (the work of arsonists sympathetic to the revolution) and later the Great Fire of 1835 with almost the same area of destruction. During the first 40-50 years of the colony New Amsterdam, the city stopped at Wall Street, named for the wall that protected the city from the northern wilderness. That was where the settlement ended. Beyond lay forests, ponds, and lakes and a few farms near the North River (Hudson River).
When early settlers approached the shore, they remarked about the fresh sweet air that was unlike any they could remember. It was a magical wilderness, full of excitement and promise. I walk around Centre Street and look for the remnants of Five Points (just to the southeast of the current courthouses), a melting pot where five streets converged (Baxter, Worth, Park, Mulberry and the now non-existent Little Water Street). Little Water ran into a little cul de sac bay for the Collect Pond, which was a 48 acre fresh water lake, and the source of city drinking water until it became so fouled with pollution that it had to be drained through a canal emptying into the Hudson River, establishing Canal Street. In about a century and a half, the fragrant wilderness was inundated with a flood of immigrants who lived in competitive squalor while the city struggled with the northward advance of slums and dynamic economic neighborhoods populated by the influx of gifted tradesmen and entrepreneurs. Embedded in this erupting chaos was the vision and energy of a world of new opportunities and hope for the future. It became a city of motion and luminous lights, a new constellation swirling and whirling through the universe drawing the dreams of an entire world into the vortex of its irresistible force.
Now as I walk the city, I feel the energy gleaming like a perpetual motion dynamo, and I feel the past humming all around me and under my feet. Above me is the glowing parameter of the future that stretches past the sun... beyond the galaxy, a filament of the cosmos formed of the stuff that dreams are made of.
Beneath my feet as I walk the streets of lower Manhattan, the past has been buried in the debris of time. Looking at the devastation of the World Trade Center area, I reflect that this exact same ground was the scene of the Great Fire of 1776 (the work of arsonists sympathetic to the revolution) and later the Great Fire of 1835 with almost the same area of destruction. During the first 40-50 years of the colony New Amsterdam, the city stopped at Wall Street, named for the wall that protected the city from the northern wilderness. That was where the settlement ended. Beyond lay forests, ponds, and lakes and a few farms near the North River (Hudson River).
When early settlers approached the shore, they remarked about the fresh sweet air that was unlike any they could remember. It was a magical wilderness, full of excitement and promise. I walk around Centre Street and look for the remnants of Five Points (just to the southeast of the current courthouses), a melting pot where five streets converged (Baxter, Worth, Park, Mulberry and the now non-existent Little Water Street). Little Water ran into a little cul de sac bay for the Collect Pond, which was a 48 acre fresh water lake, and the source of city drinking water until it became so fouled with pollution that it had to be drained through a canal emptying into the Hudson River, establishing Canal Street. In about a century and a half, the fragrant wilderness was inundated with a flood of immigrants who lived in competitive squalor while the city struggled with the northward advance of slums and dynamic economic neighborhoods populated by the influx of gifted tradesmen and entrepreneurs. Embedded in this erupting chaos was the vision and energy of a world of new opportunities and hope for the future. It became a city of motion and luminous lights, a new constellation swirling and whirling through the universe drawing the dreams of an entire world into the vortex of its irresistible force.
Now as I walk the city, I feel the energy gleaming like a perpetual motion dynamo, and I feel the past humming all around me and under my feet. Above me is the glowing parameter of the future that stretches past the sun... beyond the galaxy, a filament of the cosmos formed of the stuff that dreams are made of.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Book Making
In this day of eBooks and Audio Books many have argued that the book of paper and covers will eventually disappear. This was predicted with the advent of the computer. But I have noticed that books have continued to multiply and pile up on tables, forests continue to be decimated, and book emporiums like Borders and Barnes and Noble, to name just two, have evolved into friendly environments compatible with the Web 2.0 philosophy of sharing, and you can sit leisurely browsing for hours over a cup of coffee while also scouring the "interverse" with your laptop.Once, long ago, in a dimension now confined to memory, I was taught by a shop teacher how make a book. It was a technical process, one of choosing cover material, paper, sewing the paper in sections and connecting them to the spine. All books have a spine, and a g
utter, which secures the paper to the cover. Sewing and gluing are the principal techniques in creating a book. Book Makers are often called Binderies, and most libraries either operate a bindery or secure the services of a bindery. Manuscripts of dissertations are transformed into books, and books destroyed by the age of Time are reborn in the bindery.In shop, we learned to make a hardcover or case binding, the classic cover that preserves books and gives them long lives no matter how often you flip through their pages. That is the true appeal of the bound book of paper: it is flippable and provides random and immediate access to any page or line in the book. There is also something durable about a book; it is picturesque, a great home decorating tool that also lets your visitors know who you are by what you read (or usually what you hope to read sometime when you can get around to it!). My first book was of blank pages, a diary, if you will. Then, inspired by This Is My Beloved, I bound a book of my poems for a distant, clandestined beloved.
Father had a severe love affair with books. In fact he built a little house in the backyard that was just for books. He loved to buy up books of estates, series of books, especially histories, for history was one of his passions. He would disappear in the evening back to his little house where he lay on a bed surrounded by books, devouring them like a starving man feeding a voracious appetite. He was really a man for today, for a Barnes and Noble with its piles of books and easy chairs where one could while away the afternoon or evening with tea or coffee, and legions of books. The likes of him and those who follow populating these book spas are the real book makers... books made for those who discover worlds waiting in words.
In my new-found love of fiction, I relish reading in the environment created by these new book sellers. A certain spirit of the printed word, a reverence that borders on religiosity pervades the space. In the silence there are many readers, and the energy of so many converting words to consciousness is exhilarating. It is quiet, but there are inner detonations of imagination transforming silence into a vivid universe of unfolding experiences. It is more exciting than going to the movies, and the price of admission is your imagination.
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Father Knew Best
I have just discovered a new art form: fiction.
I know that fiction, per se, is really old hat, but for some reason my reading has centered around two domains: poetry and non-fiction. The fiction that I read was usually in the context of assigned reading in school, hardly an inspired context. For me, poetry was always the rich domain of imagery that explosively erupted as insightful discovery.
In addition, from very early on, my main outlet for creative consumption and creative output was music. This really flew in the face of a love affair with journalism that began around the third grade and shaped much of what I did for at least a decade. My father introduced me to publishing the printed word. I started writing a paper for my elementary school, and my father had an hectograph at work, in which you placed a prepared master on a gelatin bed and then put a blank sheet of paper on this sticky goo and after smoothing it out, pulled up the transferred print or image to the page. With luck we could print about 50 copies. You prepared a blue master and printed blue copies of typed text or hand-drawn images.
This publishing venture, small-time as it was, hooked me on the power of the printed word. After my near-death bout with an illness, my father bought me a used mimeograph. Now I had no limit
to the number of copies (except expenses) I could print, since this machine printed copies from ink in a drum that had a stencil made of wax-like paper attached. The typewriter cut type images through the stencil and special styli could be used to draw all manner of lines, including images that were the forerunner of clip art. My first major paper was The Weekly Laff, with more than 1000 subscribers, and almost simultaneously The 205 Home Rumour and a newspaper for my scout troop whose name I can't remember (the paper, not the troop). The Weekly Laff's front page was filled with jokes. The news began on the second page and focused on the Korean "hot war," and local neighborhood news.
Such a long aside from my discovery of fiction! My adventure began a few months ago when I decided I was interested in writing styles. So I started visiting Borders or Barnes and Noble to find the new fiction table, where I would systematically read about ten pages from one book, and then ten from another, and so on until I had read about 70-80 pages. Everything at first was about style, but after a few months I've fallen in love with the substance of the unfolding narrative, the very stuff of life.
I suppose this love goes back to my father, since before I could speak, my father had decided that I should be a writer. After going through his things when he died, I discovered he had many snatches of writings that trailed off unfinished, more than likely because he had to put food on the table through very difficult times. Yet. his support of my journalistic career was a gentle nudge along the path he would have liked to follow. Journalism seemed to flow through me like an elixir. After printing my own publications, I was named editor for our newspaper in Junior High and
graduated to the offset printing process, but had to prepare copy and dummies for the printer just like the big boys. In High School I started as the sports writer, then editor, and then went on to be the editor-in chief of the newspaper and the yearbook. One additional perk came with my high school profession as an editor: I learned to be a printer. I ran the high school print shop which boasted a hand-fed printer in which a roller went over an ink platen and then inked the hard handset type that was locked into a frame. One could use all kinds of paper stock, and I loved to print greeting cards, especially Christmas cards. Operating the printer required a bit of courage and dexterity since the paper had to be manually placed in the right position instantly and the hand withdrawn before the inked type frame slammed down on the paper.
All during that time, I was composing music and shows, and the lure of music was just too great and won out in college, even though I had won the Columbia University Award for excellence in journalism and editorial writing while in high school.
Throughout it all, my father kept insisting that one day I would return to the written word. In many ways, I never left it. I have continued to write poetry throughout my life. But suddenly I have discovered fiction. Something happens to the brain when you read fiction, and it is more than just the mind creating imagery from the prose. It is difficult to explain, but for me it is positively electric. It also underscores an idea my Father instilled in me...that the laboratory for writers is life itself...nothing is trivial...everything has meaning and will emerge in your story, which in some ways is the narrative of yourself reconstructed from your personal journey.
I know that fiction, per se, is really old hat, but for some reason my reading has centered around two domains: poetry and non-fiction. The fiction that I read was usually in the context of assigned reading in school, hardly an inspired context. For me, poetry was always the rich domain of imagery that explosively erupted as insightful discovery.
In addition, from very early on, my main outlet for creative consumption and creative output was music. This really flew in the face of a love affair with journalism that began around the third grade and shaped much of what I did for at least a decade. My father introduced me to publishing the printed word. I started writing a paper for my elementary school, and my father had an hectograph at work, in which you placed a prepared master on a gelatin bed and then put a blank sheet of paper on this sticky goo and after smoothing it out, pulled up the transferred print or image to the page. With luck we could print about 50 copies. You prepared a blue master and printed blue copies of typed text or hand-drawn images.
This publishing venture, small-time as it was, hooked me on the power of the printed word. After my near-death bout with an illness, my father bought me a used mimeograph. Now I had no limit
to the number of copies (except expenses) I could print, since this machine printed copies from ink in a drum that had a stencil made of wax-like paper attached. The typewriter cut type images through the stencil and special styli could be used to draw all manner of lines, including images that were the forerunner of clip art. My first major paper was The Weekly Laff, with more than 1000 subscribers, and almost simultaneously The 205 Home Rumour and a newspaper for my scout troop whose name I can't remember (the paper, not the troop). The Weekly Laff's front page was filled with jokes. The news began on the second page and focused on the Korean "hot war," and local neighborhood news.Such a long aside from my discovery of fiction! My adventure began a few months ago when I decided I was interested in writing styles. So I started visiting Borders or Barnes and Noble to find the new fiction table, where I would systematically read about ten pages from one book, and then ten from another, and so on until I had read about 70-80 pages. Everything at first was about style, but after a few months I've fallen in love with the substance of the unfolding narrative, the very stuff of life.
I suppose this love goes back to my father, since before I could speak, my father had decided that I should be a writer. After going through his things when he died, I discovered he had many snatches of writings that trailed off unfinished, more than likely because he had to put food on the table through very difficult times. Yet. his support of my journalistic career was a gentle nudge along the path he would have liked to follow. Journalism seemed to flow through me like an elixir. After printing my own publications, I was named editor for our newspaper in Junior High and
graduated to the offset printing process, but had to prepare copy and dummies for the printer just like the big boys. In High School I started as the sports writer, then editor, and then went on to be the editor-in chief of the newspaper and the yearbook. One additional perk came with my high school profession as an editor: I learned to be a printer. I ran the high school print shop which boasted a hand-fed printer in which a roller went over an ink platen and then inked the hard handset type that was locked into a frame. One could use all kinds of paper stock, and I loved to print greeting cards, especially Christmas cards. Operating the printer required a bit of courage and dexterity since the paper had to be manually placed in the right position instantly and the hand withdrawn before the inked type frame slammed down on the paper.All during that time, I was composing music and shows, and the lure of music was just too great and won out in college, even though I had won the Columbia University Award for excellence in journalism and editorial writing while in high school.
Throughout it all, my father kept insisting that one day I would return to the written word. In many ways, I never left it. I have continued to write poetry throughout my life. But suddenly I have discovered fiction. Something happens to the brain when you read fiction, and it is more than just the mind creating imagery from the prose. It is difficult to explain, but for me it is positively electric. It also underscores an idea my Father instilled in me...that the laboratory for writers is life itself...nothing is trivial...everything has meaning and will emerge in your story, which in some ways is the narrative of yourself reconstructed from your personal journey.
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Year's End
The end is the beginning. Suddenly I discover a new perception of Time and Being. Being is Time and repetition of cycles is an illusion. The circle as a symbol of infinity is a fiction, because the "circle" is constantly moving, revolving and evolving through time and space. Our dimensional worlds are like cylinders and filaments in never-ending change or vibration. It might well be that consciousness is the collision of membranes oscillating and making parallel universes as they go along, appearing and reappearing in a vast infinitude of realities and universes.
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Time Loss
All this time since the last entry...lost.
Why?
My inertia compounds the loss. Time looming large is more daunting than an empty page, an empty canvas, an empty space inviting, enticing... Time is the very stuff of existence, the essence of Being, more palpable than space. Being stuck in Time is like disappearing into a blackhole. That is where I have been... past the Event Horizon... into the jowls of the Time Grinder.
My Browser was set to open on this blog. Every time I opened it, this black hole of Jet Lag came up as a grim reminder of my stalled condition. It should have been Time Lag because my paralysis extended way beyond the conventions of travel disadvantages from point to point on our globe.
So now I open a new era. Somehow I have gone through an evolution from early enthusiasm, through the trying times of working through patches with no inspiration, to the recognition of my limits and a growing vision. Maybe this era will be open new insights and energies. I know I have lost the few readers I may have had, so now I write to the empty space, the empty page, the emptiness of an existential ennui that smiles as it advances for the kill.
Why?
My inertia compounds the loss. Time looming large is more daunting than an empty page, an empty canvas, an empty space inviting, enticing... Time is the very stuff of existence, the essence of Being, more palpable than space. Being stuck in Time is like disappearing into a blackhole. That is where I have been... past the Event Horizon... into the jowls of the Time Grinder.
My Browser was set to open on this blog. Every time I opened it, this black hole of Jet Lag came up as a grim reminder of my stalled condition. It should have been Time Lag because my paralysis extended way beyond the conventions of travel disadvantages from point to point on our globe.
So now I open a new era. Somehow I have gone through an evolution from early enthusiasm, through the trying times of working through patches with no inspiration, to the recognition of my limits and a growing vision. Maybe this era will be open new insights and energies. I know I have lost the few readers I may have had, so now I write to the empty space, the empty page, the emptiness of an existential ennui that smiles as it advances for the kill.
Monday, August 28, 2006
Jet Lag
In my travels I have experienced what I thought was jet lag, a kind of sluggishness and fatigue that is somewhat annoying and is over in a few days. When I heard others who travel more than I complain of jet lag, I assumed they were speaking of this minor nuisance and I wondered about the basis of their difficulty.
However, the jet lag I experienced this time after returning from Korea was totally disabling, a major impediment to routine functioning. This was not something that I could ignore, since my energy was totally drained and I was thoroughly disoriented. Each day I would manage to get out of bed and get through the morning routine, but when I tried to leave the apartment, I would feel as though someone had hit me with a sledge hammer as I was trying to walk while dragging a three hundred pound weight. Each day I would try to return to work, I would be beaten back by a ruthless fatigue that resembled a drug-induced state. I would lay delirious in bed, voices on the radio blending with my fantasies in some bizarre narrative of intrigue and deception. Somehow I would find myself back in Korea in some back street pursuing some vague adventure that left me helpless and alone...descending into unconsciousness.
One friend advised me to "stay with the sun" and I thought he merely meant to adjust my sleeping habits to the local daylight hours. But I have since learned that the remedy is to absorb as much sunlight as possible as it creates a chemical response that counteracts the jet lag and enables you to adjust quickly. Alas! I learned this too late since I am now in the final stages of recovery. Yet, I have a new respect for those world travelers who seem to thrive in the changing zones of time and days perhaps creating a new species equipped for time travel.
However, the jet lag I experienced this time after returning from Korea was totally disabling, a major impediment to routine functioning. This was not something that I could ignore, since my energy was totally drained and I was thoroughly disoriented. Each day I would manage to get out of bed and get through the morning routine, but when I tried to leave the apartment, I would feel as though someone had hit me with a sledge hammer as I was trying to walk while dragging a three hundred pound weight. Each day I would try to return to work, I would be beaten back by a ruthless fatigue that resembled a drug-induced state. I would lay delirious in bed, voices on the radio blending with my fantasies in some bizarre narrative of intrigue and deception. Somehow I would find myself back in Korea in some back street pursuing some vague adventure that left me helpless and alone...descending into unconsciousness.
One friend advised me to "stay with the sun" and I thought he merely meant to adjust my sleeping habits to the local daylight hours. But I have since learned that the remedy is to absorb as much sunlight as possible as it creates a chemical response that counteracts the jet lag and enables you to adjust quickly. Alas! I learned this too late since I am now in the final stages of recovery. Yet, I have a new respect for those world travelers who seem to thrive in the changing zones of time and days perhaps creating a new species equipped for time travel.
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Namsadang
When I travel, I always think there will be more free time than actually materializes. I thought I would have time for long, leisurely blogging about my visit to Korea. I have many notes and many thoughts, few of which have made it through my fingers to this Blog. It's okay. Right now I am trying to relish the moments and the people. Some of these experiences will eventually make their way to words, but others may slumber for another time.
One discovery that I cherish is Namsadang and the newly sculpted figures in Anseong that celebrate this entertainment and art genre. Apparently the film The King and the Clown (Wang-eui Nam-ja) is narrated through the context of Namsadang, so I look forward to seeing that film which apparently has had lasting impact on Koreans. It seems clear that effotrs such this are awakening many to the rich heritage and past of a country that is distinctively different from its Asian neighbors despite some obvious practices they share through interaction over centuries.
Namsadang (Namsadang Nori) represents a traveling group of entertainers much in the spirit of Commedia dell'arte that flourished as a traveling troupe of acrobats, dancers, and actors in Italy in the 1500s. The sculpted figures at Anseong convey the spontaneity and energy of this practice that has as its primary aim to entertain, and through the invention and imagination of its makers has risen to the status of a national art. These figures were installed this past July, so they have been a public fixture for about a month. They make an exciting contribution to Anseong and performance heritage of Namsadang.
One discovery that I cherish is Namsadang and the newly sculpted figures in Anseong that celebrate this entertainment and art genre. Apparently the film The King and the Clown (Wang-eui Nam-ja) is narrated through the context of Namsadang, so I look forward to seeing that film which apparently has had lasting impact on Koreans. It seems clear that effotrs such this are awakening many to the rich heritage and past of a country that is distinctively different from its Asian neighbors despite some obvious practices they share through interaction over centuries.
Namsadang (Namsadang Nori) represents a traveling group of entertainers much in the spirit of Commedia dell'arte that flourished as a traveling troupe of acrobats, dancers, and actors in Italy in the 1500s. The sculpted figures at Anseong convey the spontaneity and energy of this practice that has as its primary aim to entertain, and through the invention and imagination of its makers has risen to the status of a national art. These figures were installed this past July, so they have been a public fixture for about a month. They make an exciting contribution to Anseong and performance heritage of Namsadang.
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Itaewon: Pul Hyanggi and the Grand Hyatt Terrace
Finally, Sang-chuel Choe and I made contact and arranged to get together on this day of Korean Independence. I had already had met for lunch with Professor Doo-jin Han, and with Youngju and Han went to the new National Museum of Korea, so the day had been rather full. Youngju shared some time as I waited for Sang-chuel in the lounge of the Seoul Plaza. (The day had brought one minor disaster: I lost my camera in a taxi without much hope of recovering it.)
As we waited in the lounge, Youngju pointed out a match-making date in progress, which I learned is a very common event in hotel lounges. Korea is filled with such elegant and fanciful lounges, so it seems a great ritual for seeking and finding the mate of your dreams.
Sang-chuel finally fought his way through the notorious Seoul traffic jams arriving slightly after 7 p.m. He drove to a restaurant just beside the Itaewon area, Pul Hyanggi, which he explained means the scent or fragrance of grasses. This was a traditional Korean restaurant and I am not sure exactly what Sang-chuel ordered, but the food kept coming for an hour and twenty minutes with delectable dishes I had never seen or tasted before. It was a fest for royalty and a truly unforgettable experience. The woman dressed in traditional Korean fashion who served as our host orchestrated the meal with grace and devotion, making each dish resonate with its own special meaning and aura.
Sang-chuel telephoned Insook and arranged for her to meet us at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in nearby (very nearby) Itaewon, a cosmopolitan, upscale district appealing to international travelers and Koreans seeking a more multicultural setting. We drove along the main street of Itaewon and I felt as though we were in another country. I had read about this thriving Itaewon section in the Korean Airline's magazine, Morning Calm, and in this brief sojourn it more than lived up to the promise of the article.
The Grand Hyatt was a blast. The moment you entered, you felt like you had entered a different world. It was pulsing with energy. The lounge was filled with young people bent on romance and celebration, aided and abetted by a piano player who pulled the essence of Korean dreamy pop from the ivories with an appropriate rubato spirit of wanderlust.
We went to Sang-chuel's favorite Hyatt hangout, The Terrace. I can only say that the view from the terrace was spectacular, a panoramic view of Seoul and the Han river. We looked south from Mount Namsan across the river to the new city, and I thought I had a sense of where COEX and Chungang University might be located in that distant view. While we waited for Insook a waiter walked around the restaurant with a sign that had little bells ringing. Sang- chuel explained it was another meeting of strangers hoping to meet their dreammate.
Insook joined us shortly and we invested some calories in the desserts and coffee. I had the Mango Cup which totally destroyed any hope I had of trying to stay within range of my diet. But what the heck...it's Korea, after all.
As we waited in the lounge, Youngju pointed out a match-making date in progress, which I learned is a very common event in hotel lounges. Korea is filled with such elegant and fanciful lounges, so it seems a great ritual for seeking and finding the mate of your dreams.
Sang-chuel finally fought his way through the notorious Seoul traffic jams arriving slightly after 7 p.m. He drove to a restaurant just beside the Itaewon area, Pul Hyanggi, which he explained means the scent or fragrance of grasses. This was a traditional Korean restaurant and I am not sure exactly what Sang-chuel ordered, but the food kept coming for an hour and twenty minutes with delectable dishes I had never seen or tasted before. It was a fest for royalty and a truly unforgettable experience. The woman dressed in traditional Korean fashion who served as our host orchestrated the meal with grace and devotion, making each dish resonate with its own special meaning and aura.
Sang-chuel telephoned Insook and arranged for her to meet us at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in nearby (very nearby) Itaewon, a cosmopolitan, upscale district appealing to international travelers and Koreans seeking a more multicultural setting. We drove along the main street of Itaewon and I felt as though we were in another country. I had read about this thriving Itaewon section in the Korean Airline's magazine, Morning Calm, and in this brief sojourn it more than lived up to the promise of the article.
The Grand Hyatt was a blast. The moment you entered, you felt like you had entered a different world. It was pulsing with energy. The lounge was filled with young people bent on romance and celebration, aided and abetted by a piano player who pulled the essence of Korean dreamy pop from the ivories with an appropriate rubato spirit of wanderlust.
We went to Sang-chuel's favorite Hyatt hangout, The Terrace. I can only say that the view from the terrace was spectacular, a panoramic view of Seoul and the Han river. We looked south from Mount Namsan across the river to the new city, and I thought I had a sense of where COEX and Chungang University might be located in that distant view. While we waited for Insook a waiter walked around the restaurant with a sign that had little bells ringing. Sang- chuel explained it was another meeting of strangers hoping to meet their dreammate.
Insook joined us shortly and we invested some calories in the desserts and coffee. I had the Mango Cup which totally destroyed any hope I had of trying to stay within range of my diet. But what the heck...it's Korea, after all.
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Jumping into the Seoul Scene
Sunday, Seoul time was an exhilarating trek through the streets and by-ways of a city bigger than New York that felt somehow more intimate and open. Maybe it was just the charm of my guide, Jungmin (later joined by another charming guide) and her shrewd maneuvering. However, nothing can be done to avoid the traffic jams of Seoul which are growing more and more severe even as I am typing this paragraph. It is one of those things that everyone complains about, but somehow seem to accept as a modern condition of city life. With 44 million people who own at least one car, driving is a challenge and you usually are trying to flee the city and the congestion for points south and the endless shores that outline the peninsula.
We went through some fashionable shopping malls to watch people and the gleaming and timely products, and ended up at Tani for lunch, a fusion eatery designed as an upscale but cozy retreat where conversation and idleness reign. It was difficult to disengage from this quiet oasis, but we were seeking to be in the streets and mingle with people and Korean Culture. It was extremely hot and humid, but nevertheless we headed for a landmark, Myeong Dong Catholic Cathedral, which was about 200 meters away. Our path led us through the street of youth, Myeong Dong, a boulevard without cars, inhabited by thousands of teenagers (and younger) with many shops and carts designed to lure them into sales, but they seemed especially savvy and out for other adventures. Walking this street gave new meaning to the phrase "strolling the boulevard..."
Eventually we came to the church, which because it was Sunday was filled with worshippers and tourists like myself. I took a few pictures but was fiercely attacked and admonished by a girl of about 15 years, who was supported by some man who appeared to be in charge of the back of the church. They were intent in herding people to the sides of the church where no one could see, while keeping the center of the sanctuary vacant.
Our real destination for the day was a martial arts musical show called Jumping that had been running for some time and became extremely popular after being acclaimed by a festival in Edinburgh. As it happened, we were to see the last performance of this show in the Cecil Theatre (a typical off-Broadway style space) before it began a national tour.
Upon leaving the church, we grabbed a taxi, and discovered that the driver did not have the slightest idea how to get to the theatre, even though it is a well-known destination and quite famous because of the hit shows that have played there. It was at this point, Jungmin pulled out her phone and called someone for directions, and then handed the phone to the driver, who despite this assistance seemed very reluctant to accept the directions.
Even though we inched our way through traffic, we made it to the theatre much too early and were told about a nearby cafeteria where we might spend some time and find some refreshment. But the cafeteria was closed for Sunday, so we wandered a long the street and stumbled upon a true national treasure that had been named by an international group of architects as the most impressive and beautiful building in Seoul, the Seoul Anglican Church.
This was an extraordinary discovery, and although the sanctuary was closed, a very kind gentleman unlocked the doors and gave us a personal tour. The architecture is Anglican gothic mixed with Korean, the only such structure of its kind. Even as I write this in the plaza of the Seoul Plaza Hotel, I am looking at this idyllic structure with the deep earthern orange roofs and light brown stone that sits in the center of the city, out of the way but also deeply in the midst of the life of Seoul. Begun in 1924, the church took more than 70 years to complete, and saw Seoul survive some of its most tempestuous times.
After leaving the church, we discovered a gallery maintained by one of Korea's largest newspapers, Chosan. In the gallery we found a very tasteful snackbar where we tried a beverage Clearly Canadian and a mango frappe. This turned out to be a great spot to talk politics, and I discovered that Korea's president is not well thought of (to say the least).
We then headed for the Cecil Theatre and watched a wonderful display of energy and imagination called Jumping, and by the time the show was over the whole place was jumping. A highlight of the event was after the show when the entire cast lined up to give autographs and pose for pictures. Jungmin collected all the autographs as I served as the historian/researcher.
You might think that would be the finish of a wonder-filled day, but we were joined by Youngju and headed for the Samsung Tower and a restaurant/bar known as Top Cloud. There we had impressive French Cuisine and shared ice cream and cake to finish the meal. The manager of the restaurant and our waiter were rather smitten by my guides, so we were treated to a tour and pictures before we finally left and called it a day.
We went through some fashionable shopping malls to watch people and the gleaming and timely products, and ended up at Tani for lunch, a fusion eatery designed as an upscale but cozy retreat where conversation and idleness reign. It was difficult to disengage from this quiet oasis, but we were seeking to be in the streets and mingle with people and Korean Culture. It was extremely hot and humid, but nevertheless we headed for a landmark, Myeong Dong Catholic Cathedral, which was about 200 meters away. Our path led us through the street of youth, Myeong Dong, a boulevard without cars, inhabited by thousands of teenagers (and younger) with many shops and carts designed to lure them into sales, but they seemed especially savvy and out for other adventures. Walking this street gave new meaning to the phrase "strolling the boulevard..."
Eventually we came to the church, which because it was Sunday was filled with worshippers and tourists like myself. I took a few pictures but was fiercely attacked and admonished by a girl of about 15 years, who was supported by some man who appeared to be in charge of the back of the church. They were intent in herding people to the sides of the church where no one could see, while keeping the center of the sanctuary vacant.
Our real destination for the day was a martial arts musical show called Jumping that had been running for some time and became extremely popular after being acclaimed by a festival in Edinburgh. As it happened, we were to see the last performance of this show in the Cecil Theatre (a typical off-Broadway style space) before it began a national tour.
Upon leaving the church, we grabbed a taxi, and discovered that the driver did not have the slightest idea how to get to the theatre, even though it is a well-known destination and quite famous because of the hit shows that have played there. It was at this point, Jungmin pulled out her phone and called someone for directions, and then handed the phone to the driver, who despite this assistance seemed very reluctant to accept the directions.
Even though we inched our way through traffic, we made it to the theatre much too early and were told about a nearby cafeteria where we might spend some time and find some refreshment. But the cafeteria was closed for Sunday, so we wandered a long the street and stumbled upon a true national treasure that had been named by an international group of architects as the most impressive and beautiful building in Seoul, the Seoul Anglican Church.
This was an extraordinary discovery, and although the sanctuary was closed, a very kind gentleman unlocked the doors and gave us a personal tour. The architecture is Anglican gothic mixed with Korean, the only such structure of its kind. Even as I write this in the plaza of the Seoul Plaza Hotel, I am looking at this idyllic structure with the deep earthern orange roofs and light brown stone that sits in the center of the city, out of the way but also deeply in the midst of the life of Seoul. Begun in 1924, the church took more than 70 years to complete, and saw Seoul survive some of its most tempestuous times.
After leaving the church, we discovered a gallery maintained by one of Korea's largest newspapers, Chosan. In the gallery we found a very tasteful snackbar where we tried a beverage Clearly Canadian and a mango frappe. This turned out to be a great spot to talk politics, and I discovered that Korea's president is not well thought of (to say the least).
We then headed for the Cecil Theatre and watched a wonderful display of energy and imagination called Jumping, and by the time the show was over the whole place was jumping. A highlight of the event was after the show when the entire cast lined up to give autographs and pose for pictures. Jungmin collected all the autographs as I served as the historian/researcher.
You might think that would be the finish of a wonder-filled day, but we were joined by Youngju and headed for the Samsung Tower and a restaurant/bar known as Top Cloud. There we had impressive French Cuisine and shared ice cream and cake to finish the meal. The manager of the restaurant and our waiter were rather smitten by my guides, so we were treated to a tour and pictures before we finally left and called it a day.
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