I have a new computer. I'd like to say that my old computer going on life support was the reason I haven't been posting here, but actually the state of my files and the editing program I use for them were not much affected by the transition. So again, just lazy. Laziness is bad, m'kay?

February 9, 2009 - Both of these lomos are from the southern bank of the recently re-opened Keelung Riverside Bikeway, before they were closed! In fact, I think this was shot before they built a pedestrian/bike ramp from where I'm standing to the catwalk of the bridge shown, allowing people to cross the river here. Bah, the photographic evidence of the shadow in the foreground clearly shows the ramp had already been built by the time I took this shot. Tres convenient. That tower across the river used to be the chimney for waste disposal (trash incineration), and now has a revolving restaurant on top of it. Go fig.

Neither shot was taken from a place that was closed, but to get to these areas from where I live was a pain because of the flower expo. Now that the whole thing is open again, it's a part of my regular 20-25 mile training rides, hopefully building up to extended rides outside of Taipei.

This shot is right about where the bikeway was closed for the flower expo. That's the Grand Hotel across the river. Above are MRT tracks of the Danshui Line, and the red towers aren't supporting a bridge, but what I can only gather is a water pipeline. Again, go fig.

Like the First Time (T-ara)

looking sorta up

January 16, 2009 - Dazhi Bridge crossing the Keelung River. Finally, the Taipei International Flora Expo is OVER!! It was a major horticultural show and even though it was criticized for corruption and practicality, I hear it did turn out to be a tourism success, good for the economy, although I wonder how much of that tourism came from China, bad for Taiwan's independent status. The current president seems bent on making Taiwan more reliant on China.

My personal peeve about the flower show was that it closed the riverside bikeway on the south bank of the Keelung River (other side of the river to the right of the bridge) for over a year and a half. By the time I got back from the U.S. this time, the show was over and I rode over to the site and asked a worker when the bikeway would be open and he said it should be open by June.

February 9, 2009 - Taiwan Beer Factory! Mmmm, beeeeer. That's Taiwan pop singer A-mei shilling for Taiwan Beer. For most part, I hate pop music, but I've given A-mei's music a chance and some of it is listenable. Some of it is god awful. Like her song "The Power of Love" just made me think about the power of crappy music to make me hurl. But of course my fandom of K-pop has stripped me of much of my credibility and towering music authority, if not taste, so I should probably just shut up.

Mind you, I am full aware that there is plenty of crappy K-pop. Mind you, there are also very, very few legitimate rock acts from South Korea that I know of (I can't say anything about North Korea, although I hear Kim Jong-Il fronts his own heavy metal band that every North Korean knows every lyric to).

There She Is (Witches): legitimate South Korean rock band. Singer has a cool ass voice.

things are looking up

Looking straight up, that is:

December 20, 2008 - This roll is the first roll in my 2009 folder, but I started shooting it in 2008. I'm not sure what this is, I should've taken another shot from another perspective and probably will. It's some kind of sculpture with possible Taiwan indigenous tribe influences, and it's pointing east, so I think it may have some significance with sunrises. I dunno, when I saw it, I thought of it as some kind of sun sail.


January 18, 2009 - Just about every neighborhood in Taipei has a small neighborhood park. This isn't my neighborhood park, but it's not too far from me. And it was apparently a nice day in January for me to be sitting out in a park. Wow, this is old. It's a full year before I quit/took a break from my job, and I feel like I haven't been working for quite some time. Hm, it may be time to print up some more money.

Don't forget to back up your digital files:
Back It Up (Jewelry)
I (obviously) feel no need to defend my music cred on this blog, thus the shameless links to K-pop. I'm still waiting for the day that I'll look back and be mortified and embarrassed that I was listening to this pop drivel. It's just so damn catchy.

Flew into Taipei a couple days ago. It was raining when I landed and it's been dreary since, but I don't mind. It's May, so as soon as the sun comes out, it'll get plenty hot plenty quick around here, so I'm not complaining if the clouds are keeping temps just warm.

I really need to change my life around here, I don't want to go back to doing just what I was doing before the trip to the States, and I think shooting more may contribute to that end. Shooting = Getting out of the apartment during daylight hours.

I already bought more color rolls for the Fisheye and I also have my brother's Nikon D80 DSLR to try to shake things up. I think maybe I stagnated with black and white film because of too much coffee and too much stress over whether a shot is worth using a frame of film.

Ironically, the D80 allows a flexibility that I've criticized about DSLRs before, which is it allows mindless shooting of endless frames, and inevitably one of those shots is going to be usable. But that might be what I need now to get over the paralysis and indecisiveness of wondering whether to take a shot or not.

But this is not about black and white, this is lomo, and I still have about 4 rolls of unposted fisheye (only 4 rolls over the whole of 2009-10! bleah.), while I dust off the fisheye 2 and see if I'm seeing anything.

Taipei overview:

December 9, 2008 - Jiankang Street and Nanjing East Road. I still consider this my neighborhood as it's within walking distance, although towards the outer range of my walking distance. 

December 17, 2008 - Freedom Plaza with the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in the distance. The whole plaza used to be dedicated to Chiang Kai-shek, but he's a controversial character and I thought it was appropriate for the government to take some of that back and dedicate the plaza to freedom and democracy. Chiang Kai-shek was a dictator and a ruthless butcher, but without him, Taiwan's current democracy might not exist.

Oh, and that's a group of Tibetan protestors at the foot of the gate, lobbying Taiwan to protect Tibetan refugees who have escaped from mainland Chinese repression. 

Needless to say, this construction is all complete now. The riverside bikeway on the lower left is complete and open, and the bridge on the middle right -- I forget if that's what they were tearing down or putting up. I think maybe they were putting that one up, and where I was standing was the bridge that eventually came down to improve traffic flow over the Keelung River.

Rock U (Kara)

After a month in the U.S., I'm heading back to Taiwan tomorrow morning, and it just so happens that the concluding frames on this roll of lomo are shots of my neighborhood in Taiwan. Maybe this will ease the shock of being back there. Or not.

December 2, 2008 - Funky winter sunlight in the stairwell leading out of my building. I live on the 3rd floor. Prior to here, I lived on the 6th floor of a building with no elevator. For the first few days after moving here, I kept making this turn out of habit to go up further before realizing I live here.

November 29, 2008 - Neighborhood park just down the alley from me. It's a nice place to stop before going home and munch on something or just decompress. Line dancing occurs here every night, too, one can imagine. They consider it exercise, but it pretty much looks the same as line dancing.

December 2, 2008 - In the opposite direction of the park from me is a local food street a block away, although this one is nothing to write home about. There's only one food stall I go to pretty regularly that has a really good fried onion pancake type thingie which I like with either cheese, tuna or kimchi and a fried egg. Otherwise it's mostly sustenance-level food, not to savor or enjoy.

Considering the events of the last 24 hours, I'm well aware that I'm about to get on an airplane tomorrow and subject myself to the indignities of airport security. I managed to avoid the full-body scanner at SFO coming here because the line was getting so long that security opened up another line starting from the person in front of me, and that line didn't go through the full-body scanner.

Aside from the "U.S.A.!" chanting idiots, my opinions on Osama bin Laden's death is pretty much in line with the rest of America. Actually, I'm even in line with those idiots, I just disagree with that thoughtless, sports-fan expression in response to killing one man who is still responsible for killing thousands of our own. I think such whooping and hollering is disrespectful to their memory.

I did feel a cloud lifted when the news came through, and that was right when the news broke and before the hype of what big news it was started snowballing. It was something that had been left hanging for the past 10 years. It had fallen into the background, but now that it's done, it's clear that it has been something lingering that needed resolution.

Now I'm waiting for the conspiracy theories to arise. This story is ripe for conspiracy theories.

October 19, 2008 - The view from the outside hall of my 3rd story floor. The entire floor I'm sure used to be one whole apartment, but my landlord - my cousin's uncle on her mother's side - partitioned it off into separate apartments with a shared kitchen.


A short walk from my building is this roundabout at Minsheng East Road and Sanmin Road. This is a very nice section of town. A lot of residential neighborhoods in Taipei still have their old dump-like quality, so much so that the government is offering building owners subsidies to beautify their exteriors. Not in this section. For most part, residential buildings are very nice by any Western city standards. Not shiny, bright and modern, but this area of town was obviously built with a plan in mind. Not haphazardly.

I'll be leaving New Jersey next Tuesday morning, arriving in Taipei Wednesday evening, back at work Thursday night. Not sure how I feel about going back. As something I have to do, I guess I'm ready, but if I had my druthers, maybe I wouldn't.

I'm hoping to start shooting more. At least a little more than I have been. On the SLR front, I'm "retiring" my Pentax ZX-5n and taking my brother's Nikon N70 hand-me-down, for which I just bought a refurbished Nikon 24mm-120mm zoom lens. Just being a Nikkor autofocus lens is sweet. Much quicker and more accurate than the Pentax. From when I tested the Nikon against the Pentax before, the Nikon blew the Pentax out of the water.

September 20, 2008 - More riverside bikeway. I think this is in Beitou District in northern Taipei. Not having car, girlfriend with car, nor willing to transport by car, I'm not sure what the roadway is overhead, but no doubt it's some bit of freeway to make a few miles go faster. *sigh* what ever happened to US$150 per barrel oil? Funny, though, that bend in the freeway actually looks straightened out by the fisheye. It's actually a pretty sexy line.


Guangdu Temple, a famous Taoist temple in northern Taipei. I haven't been riding this year. I just started running again, but, alas, no motivation to take my bike out yet. I think part of it is psychological. I don't want to just repeat what I did last year. I don't want to get out on my bike and ride the same routes I did last year, and I covered most of them last year. I can't think of many routes that I've noticed and didn't do last year. But I think once I get out on my bike, I'd be happy doing anything. Well, like with running, I won't force anything. It's not like a dog that you have to take out for a walk whether you like it or not. I'll take out my bike when I do.

September 20, 2008 - Keelung riverside bikeway, clean up about a week after a typhoon last year. Being a relatively large river with a wide flood plain, the Keelung River wasn't so impressive during the typhoon, it just filled with lots of water, and the clean up wasn't all too dramatic either. Some large pieces of machinery pushing debris into piles.

The Keelung River flows east to west through Taipei, with one south to north kink. This is where the south to north part kinks back westward, with Neihu District on the right, north of the river. Rivers in cities fascinate me. Whenever I go to a new city, the first thing I want to know about is the rivers and the role they play.

Like when I went to Geneva, I had to see where the Rhone met the L'Arve, and it was a beautiful confluence since the waters of the Rhone were clear and blue, and the L'Arve was brown and muddy. And in Hiroshima, of course, the Genpaku Dome (ground zero for the atomic bomb) was right at a confluence of rivers.


Still along the Keelung River splitting Zhongshan District across the river on the left with Shilin District to the right. Currently, this stretch is unpassable due to construction. Pisses me off. Last year, Taipei was so good at having miles and miles of seamless bikeway, but recently they've closed huge sections for construction. They had to do it all at once? They don't recognize the importance of the bikeways for Taipei's recreational life and promotion of cycling? It's what I've come to expect of Taiwan, but I was hoping for something better.

September 17, 2008 - Taipei Main Station with its grand looking interior. I should've aimed a little more up. Whenever I look up there, I think what a waste of space, they could've done something with that. Taipei Main Station is a hub that includes regular trains, the transfer station of the two major MRT lines, and the High Speed Rail. On the second floor, where I'm standing, is a mega foodcourt that goes all around this space. Just across the street to the north, they are putting the finishing touches on a centralized bus depot, which I assume will house all the long-haul tour bus companies in one place. It will also be a shopping center, multiplex, office space, and luxury residences.


September 24, 2008 - Kaohsiung MRT Formosa Boulevard Station. Not exactly the equivalent of Taipei Main Station, but as close as Kaohsiung can get to it. Kaohsiung's main train station is just a train station, even though there is a KMRT station attached to it now. It's an old, dingy, no nonsense, get-people-to-their-trains station. But Formosa Boulevard Station is the transfer station for the two lines of the KMRT, and so it's the dolled up, flagship, pride-of-the-KMRT station.

I'm in Kaohsiung now, and I passed right by this impressive public art piece called "Dome of Light" this morning. I took the overnight bus after I got off of work, arriving after 5:30 in the morning.

I'm here because today is the first day of eligibility to apply for getting my Taiwanese citizen ID card, after more than a year of waiting and unable to leave the country.

I had to apply for my ID card back then, and now I had to apply to get it. Go fig. They say I'll get it in 2 weeks, at which point I have to apply for a Taiwanese passport (despite the fact that I already have one), which will take another week. So I've already booked a flight to go to the U.S. in June for 3 weeks.

That's going to put things at work in a real mess, but I've been stuck here since January 2008, and the newspaper gave me the serious shaft for about six months, and even though that was under my old boss, who retired, I'm still holding it against the paper in that I'm not going to go any extra miles for them, and I have no loyalty to them; although I will continue to do the best job I can, just because that's my work ethic, I think, and support the new boss and his changes (one of which included bringing me back full-time, but on my terms, which is 4 days a week), and make the position I'm in as professional as possible - which it hasn't been.

Anyway, we need to hire new people for the position, and the situation in June is turning out to make it absolutely urgent to get trainees in very, very soon, or it will really suck for someone. Not me. I'll be eating the best pizza and lasagna in the world.

typhoon pics

September 14, 2008 - Raohe St. where the night market opens up at . . . night. Typhoon means holiday, so people use the road as a normal road and park along it. The numbers on the street are where booths go, obviously, and the chalk stickmen are where pedestrian lanes are supposed to be. That's mostly theory, though, not necessarily practice.

Swine flu all over the news. CNN on constant coverage, we had the words "swine flu" on practically every page of the newspaper today. We don't like to repeat ourselves too much in headlines on one page, so I was pressed to come up with other terms for swine flu - epidemic, virus, the icky icky, that which should not be breathed in, etc.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Take a Lickin' and Keep on Tickin' (Bootsy Collins)
2. Kid Fears (Indigo Girls)
3. Josephine (Tori Amos)
4. Still In Love (Cat Power)
5. Remedy (Cold)
6. Visions of Johanna (Bob Dylan)
7. West (Pinback)
8. Before They Knew (The Butterfly Effect)
9. O My God (The Police)
10. Birthmark (100 Watt Smile)

typhoon pics

September 14, 2008 - Keelung River and Maishuai Bridge #2 during a typhoon. I thought the Keelung River would be interesting during a typhoon, but it's too big. It was impressive, but not exciting like the smaller Jingmei River where I used to live, which turned into a raging torrent. The Keelung River just got really full.


Opposite view looking at Maishuai Bridge #1. I don't remember the name of the typhoon - too far back, one of the disadvantages of not posting closer to when I shot - but I think it was a really slow moving typhoon and I went out shooting when the eye was over Taipei for like 3 hours. The storm picked up again later.


Maishuai Bridge #1 from the other side. I still had to go to work that evening, as a daily newspaper has to come out no matter what. I think the storm had died down by the time we finished, and I probably took a bus home no problem. I think the newspaper was willing to pay for a taxi if it was still raging outside.

Everything has changed since then. I took some time off and worked part-time for a while. Now I'm back at about 80%, working 4 days a week, and that suits me fine. New boss, and changing format. It may get interesting.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. DMV (Primus)
2. Citizen Erased (Muse)
3. Soma (live) (Smashing Pumpkins)
4. Texas Flood (live) (Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble)
5. Counting Out Time (remixed) (Genesis)
6. Static (Sahara Hotnights)
7. Midnight Rambler (The Rolling Stones)
8. Anata ga Koko ni Ite Hoshii (Chitose Hajime)
9. The Seven Sisters (Rainer Maria)
10. In My House (PCS Nitrogen Starlift Steel Orchestra)

September 7, 2008 - Art installation outside Taipei 101. And the oft-copied "LOVE" sculpture tiny in the distance.


Motorscooter lot outside the Vieshow movie theater in Xinyi District.

So CNN reports it's been 10 years since Columbine. I never comment on news events as they happen, because they happen and then often they're gone. They're just news events. But I think even news events have a maturation period for their profundity to manifest.

10 years in a life. What would those high school students be now? And how we'd be perfectly happy not knowing a thing about their anonymous lives if they had just been allowed to live, to graduate from high school, to go on to college or jobs or meet someone special or raise families, ideally. Or whatever their ideal was.

And what a special place in Colorado that area is - maybe its the thin air, maybe the beautiful scenery that brings out an organic spirituality. The interviews with parents 10 years on were so grounded and profound. They still have their grief, but they've also grown from it and come to higher or deeper understandings and realizations about life.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Terrified of Flight (764-HERO)
2. Napoleon (Ani DiFranco)
3. Miss Brand-New Day (Southern All-Stars)
4. Jumpers (Sleater-Kinney)
5. Paperback Writer (The Beatles)
6. Today Tomorrow Sometime Never (Echobelly)
7. D.I.Y. (live) (Peter Gabriel)
8. Moonlit Sea of Clouds (k's Choice)
9. Egypt (Kate Bush)
10. Aqualung (Jethro Tull)

night and day

September 7, 2008 - Songzhi Road in Xinyi District on the footbridge connecting Taipei 101 and the extended shopping area and Vieshow movie theater.


December 24, 2008 - long exposure.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Razzle Dazzle ("Chicago")
2. Ishiki (Shiina Ringo)
3. Rock Candy Brains (Kristin Hersh)
4. Don't Call Home (The Breeders)
5. Little Palaces (The Costello Show featuring the Attractions)
6. Lovely Rita (The Beatles)
7. Call Me Back Again (live) (Wings)
8. Thru These Walls (Phil Collins)
9. String Quartet No. 8, II. Allegro molto (Shostakovich)
10. Fever Few (Throwing Muses)

2 lomos that have nothing to do with each other

August 19, 2008 - Shandao Temple on Zhongxiao East Road, Sec. 1. This is an urban Buddhist temple and is the name of the MRT stop one away from the central MRT stop at Taipei Main Station. I've never been inside. Something about it being in the middle of a city and looking huge and ornate puts me off.


September 3, 2008 - Inside a beef noodle shop in my neighborhood. Beef noodle soup is, like, one of the national dishes of Taiwan, although beef has been putting me off lately. Oh, hey, I guess these two pictures do have something to do with each other! Two things that put me off!

I dunno, the last time I ate beef, several weeks ago, I kinda felt sick, but not physically, just like I wasn't thrilled about eating beef. That happened before with seafood a long time ago, too. That time I just felt like a cannibal, which led me to believe I was seafood in a string of previous lives. It's not that I can't eat seafood, I just avoid it if I have a choice about it.

I've been avoiding beef and cutting down on meat in general and I actually have been feeling . . . less . . . something - weighted down? Less heavy? I'm not making a turn for more healthy, just going for what feels better.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. My Weapon (XTC)
2. Starla (Smashing Pumpkins)
3. Sayonara (Dreams Come True)
4. Dissident (Pearl Jam)
5. Revenge (live) (Archers of Loaf)
6. Back of Your Head (Cat Power)
7. Happy Jack (live) (The Who)
8. Moby Dick (live) (Led Zeppelin)
9. Singapore (Tom Waits)
10. Artists Only (Talking Heads)

Intersections

August 28, 2008 - Minquan West Road and Chengde Road in the late afternoon.


September 6, 2008 - Dunhua North Road and Nanjing East Road with Taipei Arena across the street there. The fascade is a huge jumbotron. I don't know what they're called now. Back in my day, they were called jumbotrons and were exclusively made by Sony.

I got my job back at work after someone got fired this week. I'd been marginalized for the past six months, relegated to working weekends, because I refused to work with her. Then my old boss retired and the new boss apparently felt the same way I did, only he is higher up the food chain.

I'm just being dramatic when I say I got my job back, it's really not like that. From their point of view, the terms of my employment were simply renegotiated, and I'm doing them a favor by agreeing to work more shifts. And apparently everyone knew about the beef between us, as people have been coming up to me asking, "So now that she's gone, you're going to be working more days, right?"

For now. I've agreed to work through April. I still plan to go to the U.S. in May. Whether the job is still there when I get back is up to fate.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Azanian Freedom Song (Sweet Honey in the Rock)
2. Fading Lights (live) (Genesis)
3. When I Was A Young Girl (Feist)
4. Learn to Fly (Foo Fighters)
5. Play Dead (Versus)
6. Knife Edge (Emerson, Lake & Palmer)
7. From Now On (Supertramp)
8. Funnelhead (Archers of Loaf)
9. Neighborhood (Space)
10. What in the World? (live) (David Bowie)

August 12, 2008 - Fuxing North Road, along the raised tracks of the MRT Brown line.


August 14, 2008 - Burning "spirit money", Taiwan's unique contribution to global warming. Although such traditions are part of the glue that holds society together and gives a culture its identity.

Strange. Or not. With signs of positive movement in the stock markets, I kinda don't want the economy to recover so quick. I also find Obama losing some of his sheen when he says things like the auto industry cannot be allowed to collapse, although I watched his town hall in Strasbourg, France, and was affirmed that he is a great orator and fundamentally a great president who sincerely first and foremost wants to steer the U.S. and the world into a more enlightened direction. He just can't be as radical as one hopes.

The auto industry can't collapse? Why not? They're dinosaurs and time is coming for its extinction into a being specialized industry. If the auto industry collapses, it may be economically devastating in the short term, but something will emerge to fill in the void it creates. It's only natural. It's natural selection, and if the auto industry can't survive on its own, it's not the fittest for survival. Furthermore, what emerges can focus on the key word for the future of the planet - sustainability. Saving the auto industry is not a move towards sustainability, economically or environmentally.

Same with the stock market recovering and still using "growth" as the measure of wealth and success. I mentioned my problem with growth as a yardstick, and he was like, "without growth, what's the point?". And I think he's exactly right, and that's exactly the problem - it's a mindset we can't even conceive of getting out of.

OK, if the stock market recovers and shows signs of an improving overall economy, maybe that also means that there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the system, and all there needs to be is regulatory tweaking and more, much more, oversight. International oversight.

But going back to any sort of status quo would be a loss of a huge opportunity to move forward. And also stymies our need for sustainability. No one wants to suffer, no one wants to suffer the pain of a long depression. But our fixes, unless sustainability is in every sentence of the fix, to avoid pain for ourselves seems to just add to the hardships our children and future generations might have to face.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Portia (Throwing Muses)
2. Angel (Belly)
3. Dashboard (Modest Mouse)
4. Glass Onion (The Beatles - Anthology)
5. sola (Kaela Kimura)
6. Circle (Edie Brickell & New Bohemians)
7. Love and Mathematics (Broken Social Scene)
8. Thick as a Brick (Jethro Tull)
9. To Your Love (Fiona Apple)
10. Cool Guitar Girl (J Church)

August 19, 2008 - The building fascade of the Indian Beer House on Bade Road, near Jianguo North Road.


August 26, 2008 - I've never been inside, but I hear the decor is also of dinosaur bones. Where to go for a brontosaurus burger.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. She's Lost Control (Joy Division)
2. King Porter Stomp (Benny Goodman)
3. Last Match (The Aislers Set)
4. Show Me the Way (Peter Frampton)
5. The Vision (Victor Wooten)
6. Cello Suite No. 2, II. Allemande (J.S. Bach)
7. Bag Lady (Eryka Badu)
8. Travis Walk (Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble)
9. The Spider (Kansas)
10. Black and Grey (Deadweight)

August 8, 2008 - Taipei, Taiwan. A small street market, near where I worked, off Zhongshan North Road, north of Mingquan East Road. Unlike other night markets, this one stayed open really late. It was often still open after I got off of work after midnight, but I never went to it to eat after work.


September 3, 2008 -A closer view. It's small compared to other night markets, it's just for people with the munchies. Oh yea, and it just occurred to me that it's right next to the closest thing Taipei has to a red light district. It's called the "Zone" or the "Combat Zone", and it's not as infamous as it once was, I gather, but I hear it's still the place to go for a quick pick-up. So yea, that's probably why it stays open so late. And another reason for me not to go there after work to eat.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Jump for Joy (Duke Ellington)
2. Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Fugue #16 (J.S. Bach)
3. Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Fugue #14 (J.S. Bach)
4. (The Gift of Sound) Where the Sun Never Goes Down (David Byrne - "Music for 'The Knee Plays'")
5. Funky Bird (Galactic)
6. London's Burning (The Clash)
7. Eric's Trip (Sonic Youth)
8. Rocks in My Bed (Duke Ellington)
9. High Time (The Grateful Dead)
10. Shine Like a New Pin (Camera Obscura)

August 7, 2008 - In front of Taipei Songshan Airport at Minquan East Road and Dunhua North Road, on my way to work in the late afternoon.

I just started a new roll in the fisheye, and the 2 shots in front of the Taiwan High Court posted earlier are, indeed, probably because it was at the beginning of the roll. I take a shot and then wonder if I advanced the film enough, so I take another just to be sure.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Velvet Days (Kristin Hersh)
2. Oh Yeah (Nokko)
3. No Aloha (The Breeders)
4. Higher Ground (Stevie Wonder)
5. Rapture (Blondie)
6. Leif Erikson (Interpol)
7. Drugs (Talking Heads)
8. Stairway to Heaven (live) (Led Zeppelin)
9. Limelight (XTC)
10. Big Spender ("Sweet Charity")

December 17, 2008 - Public art at Linsen and Zhongxiao East Road? The sun was behind me so I had to lie down on the ground to avoid getting my shadow in the lomo. Sometimes you have to lie for your art.


December 18, 2008 - Public Santa outside the Living Mall sphere.

I guess it was wishful thinking Spring had arrived. It had, but like it is everywhere, Winter has to sneak in one last sucker punch to remind us that optimism and forward-looking needs to be tempered. In Taipei, Winter means cool temperatures and overcast, rainy days.

And still it's not as bad, so far, as my first two years here. I'm optimistic that this current drear will not become a constant drear like before.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Well-Tempered Klavier, Book 2, Fugue #2 (J.S. Bach)
2. Kicked it in the Sun (live) (Built to Spill)
3. Horses (Tori Amos)
4. Else (Built to Spill)
5. Dance Hall (Modest Mouse)
6. Habit (Pearl Jam)
7. For the Turnstiles (Neil Young)
8. Losing My Mind ("Follies" - Sondheim)
9. I'm the Man Who Murdered Love (XTC)
10. All Her Favorite Fruit (Camper Van Beethoven)