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Double Double 2022-06


DOUBLE DOUBLE 2022-06<br />

<strong>Island</strong> <strong>Peninsula</strong> <strong>Cape</strong><br />

A Holly Lee and Lee Ka-sing Publication<br />

First published in Canada by OCEAN POUNDS<br />

June 2022<br />

ISBN: 978-1-989845-33-2<br />

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication<br />

Photography, Visual Art, Poetry, Literature, Culture<br />

Authors: Holly Lee,Chad Tobin, Lee Ka-sing<br />

Copyright © Ocean Pounds 2022<br />

Individual Copyrights belong to the Artists and Writers.<br />

All Rights Reserved.<br />

For information about permission to reproduce material<br />

from this book, please write to mail@oceanpounds.com<br />

DOUBLE DOUBLE was published as a weekly webzine<br />

from January 2019 to December 2021. 158 issues were<br />

published. Full archives are available online:<br />

https://oceanpounds.com/blogs/doubledouble<br />

Some issues were re-packaged and published as<br />

print-on-demand paperback editions.<br />

Since January 2022, DOUBLE DOUBLE has become a<br />

monthly publication, released in both paperback (POD)<br />

and ebook versions. POD is available for orders at OCEAN<br />

POUNDS in Toronto or online at BLURB (blurb.com).<br />

DOUBLE DOUBLE ebook edition is available for read-on-line at<br />

Reading Room https://oceanpounds.com/blogs/rr<br />

Subscribe and Support<br />

https://patreon.com/doubledoublestudio<br />

Design and Editorial by DOUBLE DOUBLE studio<br />

www.doubledouble.org<br />

<strong>Island</strong><br />

<strong>Peninsula</strong><br />

<strong>Cape</strong><br />

Images on front and back cover, end pages,<br />

run-of-pages by Lee Ka-sing<br />

Some artwork featured in this publication might be available<br />

through OCEAN POUNDS<br />

Inquiry by email: mail@oceanpounds.com<br />

OCEAN POUNDS<br />

50 Gladstone Avenue, Toronto,<br />

Ontario, Canada M6J 3K6<br />

www.oceanpounds.com


Lee Ka-sing<br />

Istanbul Journal<br />

photographs, 2018<br />

ISTANBUL JOURNAL, a folio contains 178 diptych photographs, taken in October<br />

2018. Print size 6.25 x 13 inch (330 x 158.75 mm), printed on 192 g/m matte paper.<br />

A unique Artist Proof edition was produced in March 2019. Currently, this body of<br />

work is made into a book. Images featured in this issue (on front and back cover,<br />

end pages and run-of-pages) were selected from this soon to be released<br />

publication.


Holly Lee<br />

Istanbul<br />

a suite of<br />

four poems


A Room with a View<br />

All quiet<br />

Sunday morning rises<br />

Istanbul<br />

Hear call to prayer<br />

Across the Golden Horn<br />

The Valens Aqueduct<br />

Suleymaniye, Fatih, six minarets<br />

Penciling your silhouette<br />

Young Pamuk had another view<br />

From Cihangir<br />

Over looking Üsküdar<br />

Eminönü, Topkapi, the Blue Mosque<br />

Under hustling Galata Bridge<br />

A hundred fishermen compete<br />

The fine art of fishing<br />

“What’s for dinner tonight?”<br />

That evening<br />

We ate a Black Sea turbot<br />

A flat spiky fish<br />

Swam in rock salt<br />

October, 2018


Holly Lee<br />

two recent poems


Ferry Boat Ride II<br />

Ferry Boat Ride II<br />

Saltiness in the air constant sea wind combs my hair<br />

cruising up north we turned back<br />

at the confluence of<br />

Bosphorus and the Black Sea<br />

On the strait of Bosphorus I lost my sense of place<br />

dream riding on the ferry<br />

from island to island<br />

Peng Chau, Hong Kong<br />

A distant mirage emerging<br />

a dazzling cosmopolitan city rising<br />

a mountainous clustering<br />

of high-rises climbing<br />

from the foot of the harbour<br />

up Peak Victoria<br />

Flanking both shores sporadically<br />

manors on the west houses on the east<br />

aged fortresses stood, gratifying and unyielding<br />

medieval churches fraternize with<br />

minarets and mosques<br />

tarnished palaces adorned timeworn castle walls<br />

overhead a flock of seagulls<br />

circling, making squeaky calls<br />

No glittering ultra-modern mega city of the 21st century<br />

the blemished splendour thrills like fine wine and poetry<br />

from the pier of Eminonu<br />

we set foot on a Sehir Hatlari ferryboat<br />

Sailing<br />

lost track of<br />

time, and place<br />

July 4, 2019 / June 21, 2022


Chad Tobin exhibited his work To be Frank<br />

at our gallery in 2018. During the exhibition<br />

I talked to him casually about the series, and<br />

was moved to find he put some much heart and<br />

effort into building trust and friendship with the<br />

legendary photographer, and had been treating the<br />

project so delicately.<br />

He talked about some afternoons there was simply<br />

no conversation between them; they just sat and<br />

watched the sea.<br />

Some time after the trip to Istanbul, I fancied going<br />

to <strong>Cape</strong> Breton, to meet Robert Frank myself. I<br />

emailed Chad to see if he could be a lead. He didn’t<br />

reply. Now I understand why, it was simply too late.<br />

Frank died in September 2019.<br />

(Holly)<br />

Chad Tobin<br />

two portfolios<br />

(photographs<br />

and words)<br />

To be Frank<br />

St. Valentine’s Day<br />

Chad Tobin is a photographer living and working in<br />

<strong>Cape</strong> Breton, Nova Scotia. He is one of the founding<br />

members of the Hot Fog Collective, a group of east coast<br />

artists specializing in project-based photography and<br />

documentary work.<br />

chadtobin.com


To be Frank<br />

AN IMPROBABLE MENTORSHIP WITH A LEGEND<br />

Photographer Chad Tobin spent ten years visiting and<br />

photographing the legendary photographer, Robert Frank.<br />

My heart beats faster. Should I park the car at the bottom<br />

of the driveway or by the house? I think it will be more<br />

respectful if I park at the bottom of the driveway. The engine<br />

idles with my indecision as I begin to question my cold call<br />

actions. Surely he won’t call the cops? Is this trespassing?<br />

This is definitely trespassing. He must have people<br />

approaching him all the time. Maybe this is exactly why I<br />

should turn around and forget this whole thing. At the same<br />

time, I’m here. I think he is here. If I don’t at least try, I will<br />

regret it forever. Turning the engine off, I grab my camera<br />

and the book. Walking up the steep driveway, I notice my<br />

feet in battle with my brain, shuffling one in front of the other<br />

with a hurried step, as if to shut down the inner voice telling<br />

me to turn back. I sheepishly knock at the door. “Yes?” a<br />

gray haired woman answers. Without thinking, I blurt out,<br />

in a quivering pitch, “ I am a photographer. I was wondering<br />

if Mr. Frank would sign my book.” Once I was done, she led<br />

me towards a small studio near the main house and called<br />

out loudly, “Robert, there is a guy here asking if you would<br />

sign his book, and he has the same type of camera as you.” I<br />

hear a voice from inside say, “Send him in.”<br />

From 2009 until 2019, I visited Robert Frank at his summer<br />

home in Mabou, Nova Scotia. After that first unannounced<br />

visit, it became a yearly ritual that eventually turned into<br />

a body of work called To Be Frank, a series of photographs<br />

with Frank woven into the rural landscape to which he would<br />

escape from New York City. Our conversations were mostly


St. Valentine’s Day<br />

(a suite of twelve<br />

photographs)<br />

St. Valentine’s mixes a series of encounters with people who are living their lives authentically and<br />

without reservation on the eastern island of <strong>Cape</strong> Breton, Nova Scotia.<br />

The photographer would cold call subjects in an almost date like fashion based on leads and<br />

connections of meeting different people explaining his intent.<br />

Tobin’s pursuit of each subject would bring up feelings of his 15-year-old former self when he would<br />

ask people out over the phone on Valentine’s day. “It became an addiction to see if I could get them<br />

to agree to meet me for coffee, let them see what I do and then have them invite me in their space and<br />

explore what makes them happy.”<br />

The jigsaw nature of the different collaborations mixed people like Kurt, a Buddhist who collects<br />

machine guns, a professional Disney Princess named Vanna, and Hank the 85-year-old drag racer.<br />

Not everyone agreed to be in the photos, but would consent to their spaces and areas of tranquility<br />

being represented.<br />

Tobin soon discovered through spending time with the subjects, “These people are here for<br />

themselves but not selfishly, which in turn, means they are here for us.” Using direct flash allowed<br />

the photographer to illuminate the subject and bring the viewer closer to the celebration of the<br />

freedom of resistance against the status quo. St. Valentine’s is a reminder to look internally at our own<br />

choices on what makes us happy and why we do not pursue our own internal calling.<br />

(Chad Tobin)


Holly Lee<br />

<strong>Island</strong><br />

What is geography to me? In my advancing years, I’m still asking myself the same question, or, did<br />

I ever ask myself the question? I recall faintly, but with a hint of vividness, the geography exercise<br />

book I used in primary school; a picture of Australia I drew with colour pencils, opposite the page<br />

with hand-written notes of the country. The continent was vast, covered with greens. I loved drawing<br />

then, so was singing. I still do, but have long lost that confidence and shine. My drawing now is<br />

reduced to alphabets trying to line up thought fragments. I rarely talk, let alone sing.<br />

So what does Byzantium mean to me? In younger days, it meant only one thing, which came from a<br />

Chinese translation into three characters. It followed closely to the phono-semantic method with a<br />

spectacular rendering. Every Chinese character represents one syllable, and each syllable has its own<br />

meaning: BY 拜 (to worship) / ZAN 占 (divination) / TIUM 庭 (court). BYZANTIUM 拜 占 庭 , already the<br />

word sounds reverential, majestic, glittering with gold, connecting at once to the magnificent mosaics<br />

in churches and mosques, to two thousand years of never-ending struggle, of religion, power and Glory.<br />

My fascination with Byzantium, then Constantinople, now Istanbul, owes a lot to this unidentified<br />

translator. It is like a legendary city existing at the edge of my consciousness. Strange, desirable, and<br />

untouchable.<br />

Then Orhan Pamuk came to launch his new novel The Red-Haired Woman at the Reference Library<br />

in Toronto. I have read My Name Is Red and Istanbul briefly, and was eager to go and meet him. The<br />

tickets were sold out, but I went an hour earlier to try my luck. After the talk, I lined up to buy the<br />

book. The queue was long, as everyone was waiting for his signature. I was so excited when he signed<br />

my copy, and expressed enthusiasm for visiting the city. Without raising his head, he replied cooly,<br />

“Then you should go and see it for yourself”.<br />

Old and new fascinations collided, and a journey to Istanbul deemed inevitable. In the beginning, it<br />

was simple: to visit Hagia Sophia, to see the Museum of Innocence, to taste Turkish food, and attend<br />

a Whirling Dervish ceremony. Yet, upon research, there was much, much more. It brought me to<br />

multiple trips, on paper and on screen. I was sucked into the incredible layering and heaviness of<br />

Anatolian history, built upon empires and cultures that have come and gone. The less than two weeks’<br />

visit felt extremely inadequate. At which point, and how, could one even begin to fathom its two<br />

thousand years history, grasp and fully appreciate the magnitude and splendour of this ancient city in<br />

a matter of, eleven days?


Full version (200 pages)<br />

1. Download ebook edition ($5)<br />

https://oceanpounds.com/blogs/book/ipc<br />

2. Monthly Subscription<br />

(read-on-line at Reading Room)<br />

https://www.patreon.com/doubledoublestudio<br />

3. Paperback edition ($85)<br />

https://oceanpounds.com/blogs/book/ipc

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