Category Archives: memoria
fire, flamethrower and cheese toppings at tony’s
makgeolli and its traditional kettle.
tony will likely perform his eyelash-singeing mini flamethrower show if cheese toppings are requested.
the cheese-less, safer, squid tentacle and spring onion pajeon.
cool kids
the dokkebi at the end of the road
last night i biked towards anpyeong 安平, a town of old country roads, and smells of burnt grass and decomposing organic matter. i turned towards jangsan mountain and the street soon became a dirt road. then it was just the light of my torch and the narrowing path in front of me. as things got creepier i started thinking about old dokkebis cooking stew in their little skull-strewn caves. i smelled a slow brewing cauldron somewhere near by. i inspected the treeline with my headlamp and a pair of cat eyes glowed back at me from the jungle. the road ended at a metal gate where i assume a dokkebi and its pet cat lived. it had cctv. i heard a low rumble. i looked back and in the distance i saw a train of the elevated line four quietly slither on the tracks above the empty street.
beyond the oncheoncheon | june 16
school cancelled for 3 days because of mers.
at 3 i start a long bike ride around busan.
west to oncheoncheon.
up the creek i find men net casting on a pool of water.
i stop in pnu for lunch. i turn around and bike south to seomyeon. i cross to west busan, the industrial heart of the city.
i arrive at the banks of the nakdong around 7.
i travel south to dadaepo beach following the river.
night falls
men building fires in the dark. praying or passing time where the nakdong empties into the pacific.
in dadae, makeoli for the protectors.
a little after 10 i pass a shop that makes plastic lucky pigs and other creatures in busanjin. they’re working late, perhaps trying to meet a deadline. i hear a machine somewhere in the shop. the machine makes rhythmic sounds as if breathing. with every exhalation out comes a new plastic toy. inside the shop i see a woman sitting on the floor surrounded by a thousand yellow plastic hearts. she is fixing heart-shape stickers on each plastic heart. handmade i suppose.
i stop in seomyeon for a burrito. by 11:30 im home.
mad max
sunday. in an alleyway near my home in jaesong we find a sad parrandero.
we walk from jaesong south to centum. we have lunch. we cross the orca bridge and follow the suyong to where it meets the pacific in millak. we reach ksu just in time to see:
written and directed by george miller.
milk makeoli
dmz
waiver to enter the JSA
“The visit to the Joint Security Area at Panmunjom will entail entry into a hostile area and possibility of injury or death as a direct result of enemy action.”
“Although incidents are not anticipated, the United Nations Command, the United States of America, and the Republic of Korea cannot guarantee the safety of visitors and may not be held accountable in the event of a hostile enemy act.”
unc buildings.
rok-ready
no man’s land.
yonder, noth korea.
here be dragons and communists.
HC SVNT DRACONES ET COMMVNISTS | OCTOBRIBUS MMXI
the only gold we ever found
we found the flake after a day of shoveling dirt into a gold extracting contraption my dad built out of air ducts and the air filter from a truck. it was 2009 or 2010 in the heyday of our gold ventures in clear creek. some time later i gave him the gold to keep safe while i traveled to s korea. he lost it somewhere in his house. or at least he can’t remember where he put it. it’s probably in the same spot where he hid and forgot his alleged $500-winning scratchcard.
—
in jeju, we find
music: paco de lucia. la niña de puerta oscura (1972).