Stephanie Suh

When I’m Gone Away

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Think of me when I’m gone away,
Far away to the Elysian Fields,
When you can no more touch my hands
Nor do I return to stay.

Think of me when no more
You see the wells of my eyes,
and tell me of the diamond dews
Nor do I return to smile dear:

But if you can no more think of me,
do not remorse my dear,
for if torrid words and remote promises
left a cloud of darkness
in your memory of me,
You must forget me
rather than think of me
in sympathy of me.

Isn’t it madness to deny to forget
when there’s nothing forever?

July 23, 2018

Songs of Lady Egoist

Time is like a fashionable host that greets its guests with a variety of hues and styles depending on occasions: for weekdays, it welcomes the guests with professional attire and proprieties perfected in workmanship. But for its festive weekend guests – especially the divine sabbatical Sundays, the host and the guests are all dressed in delightfully comfy clothes to lounge around their homes free from dress codes. On this beautifully leisurely Sunday afternoon, Seraphina, a full time secretary who also sometimes moonlights as a ghost writer, decides to indulge herself in a banquet of music given by the fashionable host in celebration of the divine rest all to herself alone at home with her fluffy canine sister Nena.

Seraphina’s eclectic taste in music is worth the telling: a mixture of classical standard of beauty and her pleasant quirkiness and feminine queasiness stylishly fashioned with a modish streak is her trademark, which makes her belong in her own class by herself. During her totally off-guard hours, she goes for a parade of modern day troubadours of catchy melodies and good lyrics. “Good music is to refresh the mind of anyone after her studies or work, isn’t it?” is the question Seraphina asks to herself and Nena lying prostate at her feet in defense of music she listens to as she writes down a list of the five songs in mind as follows:

Bigmouth Strikes Again – the Smiths (It’s rather surreal and dismal, but the mood created by the lyric is then betrayed by the upbeat, and melodious tune and mellifluously sonorous voice of Morrissey, who sided with Joan of Arc.
Wouldn’t It be Good? – Nik Kershaw (The song emits pathos of human life tantamount to a brevity of Greek tragedy – or comedy? It’s about a person whose life seems to be in the rut of life. Seraphina remembers reading an article about the singer having worked at an employment agency, so maybe it might have resulted from his encounter with one of the unemployed about whom the singer felt a touch of humanity.
Just Me and you – Jane Birkin (Seraphina’s fashion icon Jane Birkin sings a triumphant love in secret that gives no care to anybody but to her and her lover only.)
Yesterday, Yes A Day – Jane Birkin ( J. Birkin is all femininity personified in a mixture of delightful sensuality and sultry sensuousness, which she wears like her favorite perfume. It’s never lewd or slutty, but stylishly and poetically intoxicating. Seraphina is emulous of her favorite icon’s style to all appearance.
Daisy Bell – Blur (One day Seraphina accidentally found a retro but fabulous English sitcom “Mind Your Language” on her Kindle Fire for free thanks a lot to her Amazon Prime membership. In one of the episodes, amiable teacher Jeremy Brown, wonderfully played by the unforgettable Barry Evans, sang the song with his adult students at evening classes. Its tune so charming and catchy, Seraphina listens again to the song by the band whose CDs she had once collected.

Then she realizes that it is now almost late afternoon, the end of the restful day has come closer to the end of the meridian sun. And so has her afternoon respite from the existential dealings of the world. “Indeed pleasure and action make the hours short,” says Seraphina while glancing at her canine companion Nena taking an afternoon nap at her feet under the desk. “But with you my dear Nena and all the things I can think of to take care, I guess it’s not altogether bleak to live every day.” Seraphina smiles at Nena, gently caressing her fluffy body. It seems that to Seraphina and Nena at that blissful moment, God is in heaven, and all’s well with the world.

저장

July 23, 2018

One World Less, One Mind Less: Goodbye to Mr. Jonathan Gold

RE: July 22nd 2018 Article of “He Gave us the Keys to a hidden city” by Ruth Reichl of The Los Angeles Times

I never thought about being interested in a food critic in my life. What’s more, I never thought about writing about a food critic or anyone associated with the word “Food.” Being a believer of food as a a means of providing energy to keep my body going to live, I never paid attention to anything written by a food critic whose audience I thought would involve bon vivants only. That was until I read the article written by Ms. Reichl, a former food critic and food editor at the Los Angeles Times about the death of beloved food critic Jonathan Gold that graced the front page of the Sunday edition of the paper.

It is said that Mr. Gold died of pancreatic cancer on Saturday evening at St. Vincent Medical Center, the illness that had been so rapidly progressed since its diagnosis in early July that none of his close friends knew about it. The death of this Pulitzer Prize winning restaurant critic was beautifully recited in a one-of kind eulogy by Ms. Reichl’s vivid memory of him in her own words evocative of the simple but consequential writing impacts that I had seen from the writings of George Orwell, Stephen Crane, and Chris Bohjalian. Through her photographic writing, Mr. Gold came to life once again, driving with her to their destined food places, be it ever taco trucks, distinctive restaurants, or just any other places where the food that grabbed his attention was waiting for him. Ms. Reichl’s fine writing in combination with the discovery of Mr. Gold as a revolutionary figure in the genre of food criticism was indeed a fresh breath of the air.

Ms. Reichl’s heartfelt presentation of this likable and democratic food critic drew me into another great writer with brain and heart who tried to democratized gastronomic experiences usually reserved to a certain strata of people and to break down the social and cultural barriers existing among the classes in our society. And certainly it would be a great loss not to read a book by this witty, vivacious food critic with a milk of human kindness who elevated the value of the taco truck and revered it more than the tasting menu of any high star Michelien approved snobbish New York City restaurants that were so overrated by rote.

July 22, 2018

The Moon Sail

Monet_Sailboat_French_Impressionist_Shower_Curtain_300x300 — *Sailboat* by Claude Monet

See, where does the wind blow,
Westward, a ghost of queen sail slow –
The soul of Yesterday on the sea deeper –
Unguided, pursues her way alone ever.

July 20, 2018

Inside American’s Tomb for Illegal Wildlife Trade

RE: July 16th, 2018 article of “On the Grounded in Commerce City, Colo. : Inside America’s tomb for illegal wildfire trade by David Kelly of the Los Angeles Times

Imagine the vistas: a cornucopia of a mounted tiger fetus with its tiny ears, a grand giraffe head, a pair of shiny python skin-made thigh high boots, a black bear’s toes coupled with its gallbladders, and many more artifacts made out of animals that will never cease to blindside your vestige of humanity and overawe your tactile senses. If your mind tells you to think that the imagery is but a visceral affectation of a surreal painting of Salvador Dali, you just think yourself awake in the stupendousness of dreamlike morbidity. They are just a few illustrations of taxidermic animals confiscated in the course of international illegal trafficking of endangered animals exhibited in the National Wildlife Property Repository (the “Repository”) located in Commerce City, Colorado.

My opinion on the report of the Repository as to its existence and nature is threefold: First, I can’t believe that there is such a horrendous and macabre exhibition of the animals killed and stuffed – and in the shoddiest way – open to the public, especially aimed at school students. Second, the grim underworld of a huge illegal trading market where a great demand of the coveted animal products is constantly met with a colossal supply of the dead animals is a stark reality even in this age of technological supernova. Third, it shudders me to think the wantonness of avarice and gluttony for which the sinners would find themselves in the third and fourth circles of Dante’s Inferno. What’s more, the fact that the Repository of such abhorrent kind is located not in the outpost of civilization where the artifacts of the sorts would be regarded as a cultural tradition but in Commerce City in Colorado chills me to the bone.

It is reported that the purpose of the Repository is to educate the public on the gravitas of poaching and trafficking of endangered animals systematically perpetrated in global criminal syndicates of Chinese origin active in South Africa. However, I am concerned about the effects it intends to produce, however noble it may seem, which will likely work at cross-purposes, even counter-productively, pace its original intention to raise social awareness and ethical context of the issue. It might be all over but the shouting that rather than promoting awareness of destruction of the ecological system and its inevitable adverse impacts on mankind as well as the nature itself, the sight of the mutilated dead animal bodies and/or parts may be regarded as a freak show for those who have bizarre tastes of necrophilia and/or sadism emanating from the perceived sensual pleasures of watching animals torn apart from rib to rib, ear to ear, or head to toe in perpetual torture.