Made a lot of changes to the directory structure of the journal over the weekend. Because of that, I didn’t do any writing. Small changes are visible, aesthetic ones. Most of the work involved changing links in each entry. I’ve been thinking about the future and how the old structure was getting too cumbersome to manage much longer. I decided to make the change for the future but also retroactively. What a long, boring pain in the ass! But it’s over now and everything should flow more smoothly from now on.

Mala said there was nothing for me to do at Ewha today so I didn’t go. I felt like I had a free day and plotted how to waste the newly acquired time. I could’ve just stayed home, and normally I guess I would’ve done that, but I felt like being out. In fact, I felt like going to Ewha today and was a little disappointed that there was nothing. I could’ve gone anyway and found something to do but I wasn’t that excited about making the trip.

I had a movie to return: The English Patient. Fantastic movie. What else can I say? I cried. This time, like the first, I cried for a long time afterward; the intensity was the same. I’m trying to understand how, in between teary heaves, I can proclaim the greatness of the movie. It hurts, that film, but it is so good. Dave doesn’t cry. He says, "You know I don’t feel the tragedy of other people, especially those who aren’t real." I said that’s because you’re a "T" and not an "F". But that film in particular is more than just personal tragedy, it’s lives forever interrupted by history. The characters are fictional, but it is too easy to imagine the drama that is the lives of those who lived through that era. Hollywood has a way of making that particular brand of tragedy unbearably romantic. And, nothing is more sweet or erotic than secret, forbidden love. Wow.

After returning the movie I hopped a bus to Kangnam where The Body Shop has just opened a store a football field’s distance from Tower Records. I live 15 minutes from there by bus and am lately feeling very happy that I can shop for various soaps and creams and CD’s in one stop. So that’s what I did.

I haven’t been as excited to travel around on the bus lately because I’m getting tired of my music. The other day, though, I put in the first Electronic Album, Electronic and rejoiced at its renewed freshness. Ahhhh. Happy to go out again. Today I was looking forward to picking up Making Movies by Dire Straits. An oldie from that purposely abandoned era that I’m feeling retro about. I was reminded of their music when the Princess Bride was on TV the other day and saw that Mark Knopfler did the music for it.

Anyway, I stopped by The Body Shop and browsed through every single item they had. The store was totally empty; it was like having it all to myself. The salespeople didn’t even hassle me. I wondered if it was the time of day or the depression keeping people away. The prices are good. Although everything is imported, and the costs of imports have gone up, many stores are taking a loss to maintain lower prices on imported products. This is really, just insanely, good for me. One of their eyeshadows cost me $5. Woohoo! What are they in the US? Around $8?

At Tower I was completely disappointed. They only had a few Dire Straits CD’s, none of which I was interested in. So I started looking for other things from that era, like Pink Floyd. Their selection of Pink Floyd hadn’t changed one bit from the last time I checked, which was months ago. Of course, all the really good albums were gone and only the ones that flopped remained. Everything I looked for was either gone or didn’t even have a slot. I guess Tower is not replenishing old releases, just bringing in the new ones on big labels. Also, all except two of their "listening stations" were out of order. I suspect they’re suffering too from the depression.

Dave and I were out walking along the canal Sunday in the sunshine. All the construction just one block down from us has either slowed way down or stopped completely. Samsung was building a 102-story building there, but that has been scrapped since even Samsung is in debt way over its head. Now there is just a huge pit, the beginnings of the basement/parking/foundation, left behind. Other buildings stand half-built and haven’t changed perceptibly in months. I remember back in December writing about the speed at which the skyscrapers go up. I mean, it was like one day there was nothing there and then a month later there were skeletons of four buildings already at least 30 stories high. They look the same now as they did in Nov. The trail too, along the canal, hasn’t changed in months and we suspect the municipal government has put the recreation project on hold. That's the real bummer. We were looking forward to using the new running tracks and enjoying the nice landscaping.

The Far Eastern Economic Review had this to say about South Korea last week:

Korea Inc. is so rotten, analysts say, that its rejuvenation is bound to be an agonizingly protracted process. For the duration of this year and probably throughout 1999 then, GDP will contract, interest rates will remain punishingly high, the won will linger at present levels and South Korea’s unemployment level will be higher than at any time since the Korean War.

Ouch.

This week FEER is wondering if Japan is gearing up for a 1930’s-style depression, whatever that means. I guess if you’ve ever wanted to visit Asia, now is your best opportunity. The dollar is the world's passport.

With all my extra time today, I decided to kick back and look at my photo albums. (You’re supposed to laugh at that: As if I am EVER crunched for time.) I think I’m the only person who periodically looks through snapshots of the past on a regular basis. I treat my pictures with reverence, labeling and cataloguing moments in time. I enjoy re-living them over and over, or trying to believe that I did live certain events, as the case may be.

Flipping through pages I’ve gazed upon hundreds of times, I paused at this photograph on the left. Hysterical, absolutely hysterical! Look at those people! I couldn’t stop laughing. Do I know them? Are they white trash? Look at what they’re wearing! Omigod, it’s like some kind of classic moment neglected all this time! Like Dire Straits and Pink Floyd, I left this behind. Even though I’ve glanced over it many times since then, I haven’t stopped and really looked (and really remembered) what’s going on in that photo. Like I said, I label everything. Here is exactly what I wrote on the back:

The gang at Sandpoint MD weekend 1991
Jason, Angie, Deryl, Krafty, Brian, Cathy, and Lee.
I’m behind the camera.
Look pretty good after four days, don’t they?

The people are listed left to right, by the way. I’m glad I labeled them - See, it paid off! - because I totally forgot who Cathy was. Wonder whatever happened to her? Anyway, check out her dorky hair band! Hahaaaa! Lee’s doing some kind of gesture with his hand that was some kind of private joke thing I’ve long forgotten. Jason looks like he’s wearing leftover shoes from high school track days. How’d they stay so white? Man, look at those people. I miss Krafty so much. He was my drinking buddy. He showed me the great benefit of Vodka and Gatorade: balance your electrolytes, replenish your system even while the alcohol dehydrates you. The perfect drink. My favorite part of the photo, the thing that keeps me chuckling, is how everybody’s eyes are puffy and half-shut. Too much drinking into the wee hours? Resulting hangover?

Context: We were all camping, obviously. Four days it says. But they don’t all look like hell just because of that: Out there at Sandpoint, on the ocean, there is no fresh drinking water. While the hike is short and flat, hikers are burdened with the added weight of potable water. I don’t think we took any water. In fact, I seem to remember a three gallon water sack filled with spoti(sp?) Lee, tiny and strong like an ox, attached the sack to the pack he was carrying. The weight of it stretched the strap so that the sack hung low, between his legs like a spirited udder. There was nothing to do but play in tidal pools and drink. At night, Krafty and I clung to each other in fear of the scavenging raccoons. Their eyes reflected the light of our flashlights like cats’ eyes. Krafty, in particular enjoyed pretending to be terrified. Where is he? He was a surrogate Harbo for years and now he’s gone too.

Smart of me to be the one taking the picture. I hate to think what I looked like.

I snapped off this other photo during that trip too. I remember running through the woods to the beach with my bigass camera to catch the sun before it sank below the horizon. Later, I blew up a print of this and gave it to my cousins Bob and Kaaren to hang in their home. I like this picture. I just have a problem seeing that seastack as anything other than the tip of a penis crawling out the surf. (You may have to fiddle with your brightness knob to see what I mean.)