Doraemon redux

January 3, 2008 - While I was back in the U.S., I found that I had $400 in my Paypal account, courtesy of Sadie selling my electric drumset in San Francisco. I used the $400 to buy a new Perry Yung shakuhachi (Japanese style bamboo flute).

I've bought Perry Yung shakuhachis before, and since he's based out of New York, I've had the honor of meeting him while picking up shakuhachis that I bought from him. And I do mean it was an honor meeting him. He's a wonderful person and true to his art, very good energy from him. At this point, I wouldn't buy any other shakuhachis except his.

He gave me this one for the $400 in my Paypal account, even though it was worth $600 on eBay. That's the kind of person he is. Likewise, a previous shakuhachi I won on eBay for $260, I gave him $300 for because I totally support him and felt it was worth that much.

I love this shakuhachi, it plays amazingly well. It's also a coveted root-end shakuhachi that I particularly like. And that's my beloved Doraemon that I don't suppose anyone remembers from my first post featuring my original lomo fisheye:



iTunes soundtrack:
1. The Web (Marillion)
2. To The Bone (The Kinks)
3. Pale Marble Movie (Seam)
4. Electric Blues ("Hair")
5. Glory of the 80s (Tori Amos)
6. Saturday Night (Suede)
7. Giant Steps (Gary Willis)
8. I Hate Him ("Carnival")
9. Pug (Smashing Pumpkins)
10. Paper (Talking Heads)

December 7, 2007 - Puli, Taiwan. Ten years ago-ish, Taiwan experienced a major earthquake and central Taiwan experienced a lot of damage. Apparently this is a remnant of the damage. I think it's a vat from a brewery. Interesting fact? Interesting lomo? I just don't know anymore!

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Mayonnaise (Smashing Pumpkins)
2. Can't Buy Me Love (The Beatles)
3. Shower Song (Versus)
4. Christmas Time Forever (Southern All-Stars)
5. Professional Widow (Tori Amos)
6. Car Thief (The Beastie Boys)
7. Even in the Quietest Moments (Supertramp)
8. My Stupid Head (National Joy Band)
9. Space Dog (live) (Tori Amos)
10. Bernadette (The Kinks)

The Lonesome Crowded East

December 31, 2007 - New Jersey Turnpike, around Exit 13, approaching Newark Airport. I am so uninspired by this roll I have no idea what to do with it. I have a few more shots taken from the drive from Philadelphia to Englewood Cliffs, none the more inspired. But, there is an airplane in this shot!

iTunes soundtrack:
1. My Conviction ("Hair")
2. Hell In a Handbasket (20 Minute Loop)
3. Straight to the Top (Vegas) (Tom Waits)
4. Fuck and Run (Liz Phair)
5. Here's to the Atom Bomb (Smashing Pumpkins)
6. Get This Party Started (Pink)
7. Neal and Jack and Me (King Crimson)
8. Breathing (Kate Bush)
9. The Continental Way (Casiopea)
10. Tidal Wave (The Sugarcubes)

From on high

November 28, 2007 - Kaohsiung, Taiwan. From the, er, 7th floor of my uncle's building. It used to be the 8th floor. The building was built in a time that was more superstitious and many buildings didn't have a 4th floor. The Chinese word for 4 is a homonym with the word for death. Oh, I guess it's the same in some Western cultures that believe the number 13 is unlucky. They often don't have 13th floors.

Down that street down there they're building a station for the Kaohsiung MRT subway line. They've been at it for over three years, and they look no where near done.


December 17, 2007 - Taipei, Taiwan, from an upper floor of the new Sogo Department Store. The original Sogo is the white building at the upper right and remains open. The intersection down there is Zhongxiao East Road and Fuxing North Road, and that's an MRT line along Fuxing North Road.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Mr. Soul (Neil Young)
2. Can't Stand Losing You (live) (The Police)
3. I Remember the Sun (XTC)
4. I Would Hurt a Fly (Built to Spill)
5. Seen and Not Seen (Talking Heads)
6. You're the Wish You Are I Had (XTC)
7. No No Birdy (Southern All-Stars)
8. 也許明天 (A-Mei)
9. Silent Sorrow in Empty Boats (Genesis)
10. Aero Zeppelin (Nirvana)

redux

December 30, 2006 - National Palace Museum, same subject as in the previous post, different angle. I think better composition. Composition? This is lomo, we don't need no stinking composition.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Wild Packs of Family Dogs (Modest Mouse)
2. Jam (A Tribe Called Quest)
3. Kokoro no Ma Ma Ni (Kome Kome Club)
4. Free Trading (Ryuichi Sakamoto)
5. Calling Over Time (Edith Frost)
6. Lady Stardust (demo) (David Bowie)
7. I'm Not In Love (live) (Talking Heads)
8. Anti-Nigger Machine (Public Enemy)
9. OK/No Way (Mission of Burma)
10. Lamplight Symphony (excerpt) (live) (Kansas)

Taipei tourist landmarks

November 17, 2007 - Grand Hotel with entrance gate, in either the Shilin district or Yuanshan district, I'm a little unclear. I think I heard it was in the Yuanshan district, but it would then be separated from the rest of the Yuanshan district by what should be a natural border between Yuanshan and Shilin - the Keelung River. And actually I don't think Yuanshan is a district, it's the area south of the Keelung River and there's a MRT station named after it. So maybe it's in the Shilin district, but is also considered within the Yuanshan area.


December 4, 2007 - National Palace Museum. I dunno. I guess I've been uninspired lately. It took the longest time to finish this roll, I almost ran out of shots to post on the previous roll, and the shots are a hodge-podge of randomness. Or they're just off, like this one. Or both of these. The angle is all wrong in the first one, and in the second one I should have gone up a few more steps to not only get the writing on the window, but more of the museum building up there. Bleah.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. I Get Wild/Wild Gravity (Talking Heads)
2. The Seven Sisters (Rainer Maria)
3. Kyoshui (KODO Drummers)
4. That Dirty Old Man ("A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" - Sondheim)
5. End of the Night (The Doors)
6. If He Really Knew Me ("They're Playing Our Song")
7. 42 (Sodaneva - Japanese underground)
8. Hitsuji no Dolly (Chitose Hajime)
9. A Different City (Modest Mouse)
10. Ruthie's Knocking (Throwing Muses)

台灣高鐵

November 25, 2007 - Taiwan High Speed Rail from the inside.


November 30, 2007 - Kaohsiung terminus at Shin Zuoying Station. Urg, again the problem of using the fisheye like a regular camera - why was I standing so far away? Actually I wasn't but with the fisheye, it would have been better to get right up to the front of the train - right where all those splatter marks are on the front. What are those splatter marks anyway? Low-flying pigeons? Flying giant cockroaches? Japan's Shinkansen trains would never enter service looking like that.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. 32 Flavors (live) (Ani DiFranco)
2. Jugband Blues (Pink Floyd)
3. Carry That Weight (The Beatles)
4. Nightshop (Fugazi)
5. We're Not Going Down (Sahara Hotnights)
6. Change It (Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble)
7. Go Go Happy Day (Nokko)
8. Ringo no Uta (Tokyo Jihen)
9. Where Have All The Good Times Gone (live) (The Kinks)
10. Given to Fly (Pearl Jam)

Xinbeitou on a dreary overcast day

November 24, 2007 - Is this anything? I have no idea. I can aesthetically appreciate why I shot this, but is...it...anything? I have no idea. It's outside the hot springs museum they have there. Beitou is famous for its hot springs that the Japanese developed and made good use of during their tenure ruling Taiwan.


I think this was a long exposure with a flash at the end. It may just have been a flash shot, judging by the water and the relative steady look of the shot. Hot springs need water, and they built a park around the main stream in Beitou that provides the water for the hot springs. It's quite a nice setting. Helps alleviate the drear of an overcast day.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Bat Out of Hell (Meat Loaf)
2. Home (Kristin Hersh)
3. Come Together (The Beatles)
4. Am-A-Do (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
5. My I.Q. (live) (Ani DiFranco)
6. Crosseyed and Painless (live) (Talking Heads)
7. No Return (Nokko)
8. Deathly (Aimee Mann)
9. Friends (The Police)
10. Wait For Me (live) (Hall & Oates)

infrastructure

November 15, 2007 - Wenshan District, the edge of it that abuts the riverside parks. I was taking my time riding to school and exploring a different route. It was a waste of time and I almost got rained on, but I still made it to class before anyone else. At this point, there was no easy way to get onto the bikeways without backtracking quite a bit. Although on a total stretch of two miles, there's not much of "bit" for there to be "quite a" of to complain about. It's all relative.


November 23, 2007 - Taipei MRT Main Station. The MRT is Taipei's subway system, and there are three levels seen here, the very bottom is where you can see tracks of the blue line if you look closely enough. This is a long exposure and those blurs on the second level are probably people walking. I was waiting to meet up with someone named Scully. I've tried some X-Files quotes on her, but they went over her head. She's kind of humorless. Go fig.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Radio W-OO-10 (Victor Wooten)
2. Stop (Joe Henry)
3. Uskadara (Campur DKI)
4. My One and Only Love (Chick Corea Akoustic Band)
5. Symphony No. 10, IV. Andante-Allegro (Shostakovich)
6. Everything is Fair (A Tribe Called Quest)
7. Boys Keep Swinging (David Bowie)
8. Concrete Seconds (Pinback)
9. Lizzie Sage (Throwing Muses)
10. Happy Boobooster '99 (The Pugs)

Grand Hotels, Taiwan

May 29, 2007 - Kaohsiung Grand Hotel. It's not as grand as the one in Taipei, but it's been around for a long time, and I think it was pretty darn grand when it was built. It's near Cheng Qing Lake in Kaohsiung.


November 17, 2007 - Taipei Grand Hotel. Its exterior was featured in the early Ang Lee movie "Eat Drink Man Woman" as supposedly where the father worked. See? Problem with my fishography thinking. I shot this thinking traditional composition, but in fisheye, I should have gone right up to it to really get the grandness. Ah, a project that I will have to pursue when I get back to Taipei. I haven't mentioned that I'm in New Jersey now, have I? I go back this Sunday.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. The Company (Fish)
2. Car (live) (Built to Spill)
3. Book of Saturday (King Crimson)
4. Up the Hill Backwards (David Bowie)
5. Don't Wanna Cry (Victor Wooten)
6. Walkin' Shoes (Chet Baker)
7. Sapphire Bullets of Love (They Might Be Giants)
8. What Becomes of the Broken-Hearted (The Funk Brothers w/Joan Osborne)
9. Once Upon a Daydream (The Police)
10. Oceanbound (764-HERO)

lomo roll

November 12, 2007 - Taipei, along the Keelung River. I think this is the back of a shop that makes Buddha statues. I was out on a 30 mile riverside bikeway ride (read: perfectly flat!). I think this was like 3 or 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Even though Taiwan is closer to the equator than most of the U.S., afternoon light fades pretty quickly.


Same ride on the return half. Nice afternoon light, I held the exposure for a few seconds or else the dark parts would be too dark. It also got the sunset color nicely.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Substitute (live) (The Who)
2. Canary (Liz Phair)
3. Little Boy (Sakura)
4. Jump In the River (Sinead O'Connor)
5. Black With N.V. (No Vision) (Black Sheep)
6. Offline PK (more or less live) (Pinback)
7. The Earth Died Screaming (Tom Waits)
8. Lovely (reprise) ("A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" - Sondheim)
9. Three Boats Down from the Candy (Marillion)
10. Don't Forget to Dance (live) (The Kinks)

November 2, 2007 - Taipei 101 food court outdoor courtyard in the rain. Maybe next year I'll be in Taipei during New Years to catch the firework display that makes it look like the building's blowing up. Sounds cool. Probably tons of clips on youtube, too.


November 7, 2007 - on the dreary day theme, this is a shot out of an open window at the Taida main library. I dunno, I was sitting there studying, and some worker guy came by and opened the window right near me. I thought, "Strange", but I've seen stranger things in Taiwan. Anyway, as long as the window was open, I pulled out the 2 and took a shot. It's better not shooting through glass.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Spock On (Miss Gloria) (The Pugs)
2. Muzzle (Smashing Pumpkins)
3. Ballerina 12/24 (Steve Vai)
4. Plumbline (live) (Archers of Loaf)
5. Mickey's Monkey (The Miracles - Motown)
6. Lemon (U2)
7. Cold Lampin' With Flavor (Public Enemy)
8. When the Saints Go Marching In (Rebirth Marching Jazz Band)
9. He's Evil (The Kinks)
10. Dolphin in Me (Julie Plug)