lo-fi indo-china

Wow. It’s been a while. Times are tough for dreamers.

Currently outside Korea. Returned to Florida from a financially disastrous travel binge. Will be posting various reflections from the journey while in limbo.

Here’s somewhat of a 35mm overview brought to you by the ol’ trusty toy camera.

 

BUSAN BLITZ

Goodbye montage. Footage found on the bottom of my shoe. Nikon d5000.

 

LO-FI KOREA

I snagged a toy camera from a little back street stationary store in Nampo-dong last week. The super headz remake of the classic Vivitar ultra wide and slim. No batteries, no settings, just a small plastic box to stuff with rolls of 35mm film. It tagged along this weekend for an excursion up to Gyeongju, some beach exploring, and a Beomeosa hike. I was looking for a cheap and simple analog device and am happy with the shots. Easily slips in the pocket and should be perfect for some off-kilter graphics of the upcoming Asian trek.

 

towers, asphalt and sky- A Busan time-lapse- Music by DJ Lennart

A little project I’ve been tweaking. Wanted to see how it looked online, still needs some work. Thanks to Lennart Borst for creating the haunting audio.

 

Beomeosa in black and white

Took a Sunday stroll up Guemjeong, accidentally witnessing evening rites at the temple. Visiting bhikkus from Thailand were led around in their orange robes and the abbot of Beomeosa passed everyone a gift of his calligraphy (us too). The temple was empty, light rain, hazy evening. Five people watched the monks exit single file out of the zendo and chant the heart sutra into the mountains like a hoarse fight song; a brotherly ode to pure awakening. They were like metaphysical mercenaries. Many were quite young, I was surprised. Drums and bells echoed and reverberated, tinkling and bouncing through the evening air as white mist mushroomed off the southern peaks.  It was a long weekend, and a bleary eyed Sunday, also the first day of monsoon season, and the scene, my mind swamped in stale smoke and alcohol,made me wonder why I don’t go up there more often.

 

new camera, another reason not to write

click: photos from the weekend
Busan sand festival, Jalgachi market , misc

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poko lombro. Easily the best live music i’ve seen in Busan.

 

Korean cinema, anyone?

Let’s talk about film. For a while I felt deprived here in Korea: no subtitles at the cinema, a weak dvd rental shop, and a inability get past the several Park Chan Wook and short film sets I saw at PIFF.
For months I squinted at Youtube, watching Woody Allen films in 2 minute blips, Errol Morris interviews, trailers and behind the scenes. It was bleak until I discovered Bittorrent, downloaded the Maysles library and enough Herzog films to keep me occupied for a few years. But still I felt deprived of any Korean cinema.
In Korea I have watched hours of classics: Cassavatess, Bertolucci, etc; films that can only be found tangibly in University libraries, but I still had yet to see much Korean cinema. It seems fucked up. I watched more Korean films at home.

Luckily I had a chance to watch a nice selection of short films this weekend at the Busan Asian Short Film Festival. I was impressed, totally entranced at what I saw. I read that Cannes this year applauded the Korean selection, praising it over the sprinkle of accepted American films. A lot (not all) of Korean cinema is dope, and most people I talk to, including myself, are missing out.
Most of the pieces I saw last weekend at the festival were low budget shorts, shot in dv or hdv, although there was one screening of 35mm, produced films. But for student films I was taken with the technical skill and the content. It is a bit to get into all the themes, most were more somber, some great plot-less animations, a few were funny and sexual, none overly cliche. I don’t know what the American obsession with happy endings is, how even in the indie scene every film ends peachy. But it was a testament to veracity to see the protagonist flounder and at times even fail.

I also has the opportunity to watch the housemaid, an old Korean flick selected by Scorcese for his world cinema foundation. You can see it free online.

Anyway, the reason for this post: invitation for anyone to respond with their favorite Korean films. I know the canon isn’t necessarily large, and that everything produced from the late 60’s the late 80’s were basically propaganda films, but if you have a recommendation, clack it in for us, with a link if possible. Thanks and happy viewing.

 

205

 

poetry #1

Slurping down a piping bowl of ramen, marking my student’s writing assignments, I feel like I am reading a surrealist manifesto, or dadaist poetry;  I’m bemused with the incongruency and novelty of mistranslation. Watching the kids furiously trying to translate their thoughts with their cellphone dictionaries, scratching their heads, digging their pencils into the hand-out I give them, I like to pretend think I am getting a glimpse of their secret genius hidden below the oppressive educational fascism . Somehow they break cliche. Here are the collected works.

nature

I snorkel I can eat air

we can eat fresh air in nature

I know dies nature horror (ohh!)

the nature is smell of nice

travel

I cucumber vacation very much

I am traveling abroad with my family we are looking at the towel

I eat dirty spaghetti in eataly

artificial

He stares at the robot contest

I am growing artificial flower

artificial people and robot is same

creation

I see Peter’s creature, I say ‘oh my god’

we are greature because got made we

creature is greature

cowboys

the cowboy hit the cow

hitting hitting cow ‘umm maa’

cowboy is good job but I no like job

bodies, midnight birds and magic

the Busan shore is very dope

at midnight instant foods feed a bird

the container is my mind

I must listen carefully because my teacher is scary

I stare at the ice-cream phone

my brother picks your nose

baby cats eat the mom’s cats chest

i have a neck down my face

My favorite thing is knife

I don’t believe in magic, magic is in front of me

 

spring sprung

Spring is here and alive in all its varied guises. The cherry blossoms bloomed and I choked on yellow dust and sniveled a sinusy sigh of relief for the warmer weather. The streets, laden with pollen, sprung fresh greenery, lanterns hang near temples and kids are running ape-shit in the streets. Lauren planted a few tubs full of lettuce and strawberries on the roof of the apartment and I went up there and coughed at all the fresh air. This morning a mist hung over the mountain, looking slightly tropical. Anyway, things are back in a warmer degree. I started volunteering for a local UNESCO organization, doing cultural courses at local high schools: blabbing about creole culture, Coltrane, wigwams and skateboarding, trying an unconventional tack.

Anyway, here are some spring artifacts from the past few weeks:

 

Mister Lonely

“all I ever cared about, what moved me in film and in life, was…people,characters, scenes, moments…I never cared about ‘the answer.’ I’d rather just hear the joke, I don’t care about the punchline. I think it’s nice to leave a margin of the undefined“- Harmony Korine

Last night I watched Harmony Korine’s newest film  ‘Mister Lonely.’ I was impressed. I had been a big fan of ‘Gummo,’ not so much of ‘Julien Donkey Boy,’ but honestly counted Korine as an amphetamine casualty, mildly schizophrenic and frankly finished. I appreciated his forgoing the cliche narrative, for his arresting visual sense; I honestly considered ‘Gummo’ to be one of the more original American films I had ever seen, but I didn’t think he could sustain that kind of career. But as often is the case, I was totally wrong. Watching “Mister Lonely’ I was mesmerized by the script (written by Avi Korine) and characters, as well as the gradual, originally composed, and brilliantly colorful cinematography.

The movie goes something like this: a Michael Jackson impersonator is hard up in Paris. He’s a sweetly innocent guy, a dreamer. He is working at a nursing home, dancing for deranged geezers. He meets a Marilyn Monroe impersonator there, they share a glass of wine, they walk through a Parisian park of large, evenly spaced trees. She tells him of a commune in the Scottish highlands filled with impersonators, from Sammy Davis Jr to the Pope. He is too shy. Somehow he goes. It’s never-never land. Buckwheat rides a pony talking about how much he loves chicken. Reality sets in, things become undermined, Charlie Chaplin might be a fascist, the sheep are sick, somebody is in a tree. Micheal figures something out.

At the same time a group of nuns in Panama learn how to fly.

Like any worthwhile art the film evades being categorized. It leaves the viewer pondering identity, escapism, dreams and reality, it doesn’t beat in the point, the theme is evasive;  as the narrator in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness surmises, the meaning was  ‘not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze.” After the film was over I had this hopeful pang, now that he has matured maybe Korine will stick around for a while.

 

Beomeosa Afternoon

Canon hv30
24p
premiere cs3
Some shots from a directionless Saturday exploring the temple grounds at Beomeosa. I threw my camera in a bag and nabbed a few candid shots. The audio was from a group of women singing pansori folk songs at the top of the hiking trail, near the north gate. After hiking a few hours we were approached by some older Korean hikers curious about foreigners. They coerced us into drinking soju, afterward we all stumbled down the hill and they took us for dinner. I wanted to incorporate the footage but sadly my trial neoscene pull-down tool ended half way through converting. Hopefully I can incorporate them into something soon.

Below are some accompanying photographs, courtesy of LW

 

film test #3 (a Daegu afternoon)

After an accidental delete and some problems converting files, I have new film test, mostly from out of town. We spent Saturday in Daegu with friends and came back to check the grand opening of the Songjeong surf club on Sunday. Up north, we peeped some markets and bought boot leg dvd’s across from the military base. I seem to be giving up on words, so check the images.

Canon HV30
shot in HD, 24 frames per second

 

the computer is eating my life

After what seemed like eons, including a fake Korean website, a customs debacle, and a bogus tariff, I finally received my new camera; the Canon hv30. I got it last Thursday, went to Daegu over the weekend, loaded up a few tapes, and am staying up way too late doing film tests with the footage.  Expect about a weeks worth of these.

 

PNU GRAFFITI

So, every once and a while when the weather is nice, I get off my ass and walk along the little riverbed down to PNU- where I eat something ridiculous from a street vendor and check for new graffiti in the tunnels under the subway. Last Sunday was glorious, cherry blossoms beginning to peek out, so Lauren and I grabbed the camera and headed for a stroll. I was disappointed that my favorite piece was missing, the one showing the famous SK student demonstration/riot scene, only with a windows pop-up obscuring the faces (maybe painted over?). I nabbed a couple shots, and am deciding to post them here before the river ‘re-nourishment’ project covers them all up.