MONDAY ARTPOST 0912-2022

MONDAY
ARTPOST
0912-2022
ISSN1918-6991
MONDAYARTPOST.COM
Columns by Artists and Writers
Bob Black / bq / Cem Turgay /
Fiona Smyth / Gary Michael Dault
/ Holly Lee / Kai Chan / Kamelia
Pezeshki / Ngan Chun-tung / Shelley
Savor / Tamara Chatterjee / Wilson
Tsang / + BIBLIOTHECA (Ushioda
Tokuko)
MONDAY ARTPOST published on Mondays. Columns by Artists and Writers. All Right Reserved. Published since 2002.
An Ocean and Pounds publication. ISSN 1918-6991. email to: mail@oceanpounds.com

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Robert Frost

From the Notebooks
(2010-2022)
Gary Michael Dault
From the Notebooks, 2010-2022
Number 154: Putto with Appetite (September 5, 2022)

TANGENTS
Wilson Tsang
dreamy era

Caffeine Reveries
Shelley Savor
Reign/Rain

Everything went quiet for a while, things were alternately restful and terrifying,
pandemics can do that to communities. It was easy to notice nature, the skies were
clearer, wildlife took over the streets, the earth was breathing easier, all while a
deadly virus loomed. There is always a threat to disturb the balance of things,
however the threat is caused.
The weight of worry was heavy, so I looked up. Constantly moving shapes and
colours; blue, grey, rain, snow - clouds are busy. The sky continually inhaling and
exhaling.
I looked down. Dirt, soil, mud, leaves, mushrooms, the universe of mycelium
beneath our feet silently keeping the earth alive. The earth breathing.
Mushrooms and clouds holding everything together.
These sculptures, drawings and collages were made over the past few years during
the pandemic. Nature provided an inspiring refuge from anxiety.
Threats of global warming, nuclear annihilation, pollution, viruses, war - us humans
have a bad track record. Look up, look down, breathe in, breathe out.
Mushrooms and clouds (but no mushroom clouds).
(Shelley Savor)

Mushrooms and Clouds (but
no Mushroom Clouds)
Paperback Edition
56 pages, 8”x10”, perfect bound.
Published by OCEAN POUNDS.
Order paperback edition at BLURB (CAN$35):
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Pick up your reserve copy at the BOOK LAUNCH, pre-order today at
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This book was published on the occasion of the exhibition Mushrooms and
Clouds (but no Mushroom Clouds), held at 50 Gladstone Avenue artsalon in
Toronto, October 1-29, 2022.

Leaving Taichung
Station
Bob Black
The following poem, Hong Kong: Songs from the
Rooftops, is an 8-part poem that was written over the
course of the last 5 years. Each part corresponds to
a part of Hong Kong and each part also is dedicated
to a friend. It was completed this past spring. This
poem is dedicated to 8 friends, for whom the city
is a constant conversation in my head and heart,
regardless of the shape and tune.
This poem is dedicated to: Holly & Ka-sing Lee,
Nancy Li, Kai Chan, Yam Lau, Chris Song and Ting,
TimTim Cheng, Tammy Ho and Kristee Quinn.
May they always be filled with voices, food and
sound. Carry on.

Hong Kong: Songs from the Rooftops
“In these shaken times, who more than you holds
In the wind, our bittermelon, steadily facing
Worlds of confused bees and butterflies and a garden gone wild”
-- 梁 秉 鈞 , Bittermelon
VIII. Hong Kong, 香 港 : Rooftops and Mouthtops
And who shall share in the joy under which the trees and shadow grow
There is no pronoun for me, the eye in the I, the her in the he
the dressing for the end, clothed in the typhoon, the ghosts emerging from
the sea of the skulls backhoe, the back housing, the barking, the barkyard the
backhoe singing
redux:
I am you who (plura) are thinking of journeys, our windward, fire-burned
settlings, we hunger, ghost taste hungry, seed and flax set to flame and the
crackle of ancestor, broken tooth, dappled stone and earth wing--
the East Coast of Taiwan, a forlorn train station in Taiwan: Duoliang 多 良
piggybacking one family lilting home, this stop and step and de-railing, all
its waving, undulating wayward aspiration, memories per which--Eastward
bound, their heart grows wild from seed and surf and suffrage light our thirsty,
voracious selves, the child fingering soot and scenic swipes, repeat,
the ghosts must be fed and so must we
There is no pronoun any longer
Shadowed by the lone tree
the rooftops of Hong Kong, the mouthtops of our singing of our bodies buckling
into one another as we run through lane and life and galloping against one
another in the street in the back rooms as our bodies are met by politic and
bitten bruise, as we fuck ourselves into life as we run from being fucked by
batons and boots and long upturned plastic choking of men, our hearts licking
one another’s words and limbs all our desire a pointing toward something, to
restore silence to the murmur of our consciousness, the life of this city. the stones
in our pockets, sucked like lychee and pepper, the grey small pebbles we finger
and place in on our tongues when we weary from July humid heat and the new
leaders come down from the dragon city, familiar evenings return. Wandering
in the early hours alone. The quiet magic one bares witness to. A portal into the
mind’s eye. If only they could see there is no.
pronoun for me, dressing for the end, clothed for the typhoon
to rhyme the darkness with ringing, song and shell,
and the grattle and grass rattle beneath you
from the rooftops, the world
a kettle of ghosts, swaying
And you held the brass box lock oxidizing and stiffening
the matter of the matrilineal compass of the sky and the city:
your heart
hong kong, temper tiger, tempress lunar home
we eat. in order to eight, we ate into order right, we write in order to blacken through the deepened
cave of trooping hate, from which no lo mein came, no vernacular self, no long rung wrong
to return to the echoing, the murmurs of silence, ringing
to return to the life belled fully in that city of language and light and liquid luminescence
alive and dying, alive and going, alive and leaving
heart flesh, ghost skull, housed beneath the umbrellas yellow
A fuselage of words, the rain of our temper and a rarity
or
rarely goodbyes, Hong Kong
your heart and your children alive and long in their running singing beside the sea
songs sung from the rooftops
your life, beckoning you from afar, downtown, uphilled, desperate, dispirited, delved, diaspora’d,
ditched, a child between to translucent hearts held between him, the goldfish in each transparent
bag, tied with ribbon, his body a cantilever, his arms the fulcrum of a scale, two golden marbles
in two bodies of water, two goldfish, two stars, two hearts, two worlds, two languages, to times,
everything about this magnificent city in that moment, before and after,
Two worlds luminous in the light of the goldfish-stretched water sketched in the golden fins, an
alphabet of longing all along
afterall
your love songs sung and scattered from the rooftops of long away:
see this child going, the mother in her forest spruce cheongsam, deep green as the double-decker
bus pushing passenger and pause, and going going gong gone,
your love songs sung from the rooftops of nowhere else but alas the only chorus that mattered
home
And who shall share in the joy under which the trees and shadow grow
home
your heart and your children alive and long in their running song beside the sea

Greenwood
Kai Chan
Drawing
watercolour on paper

The Photograph
coordinated by
Kamelia Pezeshki
Bluffs park by Gordon Hawkins

Poem a Week
Gary Michael Dault
“To be a man is to clear the forest. I don’t see
the trees,” he said, “I see the cabbages, I see the
vineyards.”
----Annie Proulx, Barkskins (New York:
Scribner, 2016), p.17.
A Felled Tree
more is lost
than is wood
lying there
not a tree
tree-being goes like
the rippling soul
of someone dying
an animal giving up hope
a bird fluttering away
what you can see now
on its fresh cutting
beneath the advent
of its new moldering
is the press
of moss-like time
spreading
its slow pool

Yesterday Hong Kong
Ngan Chun Tung
Blake Pier (1952)
8x10 inch, gelatin siver photograph printed in the nineties
signed and titled on verso
From the collection of Lee Ka-sing and Holly Lee

Open/Endedness
bq 不 清
假 雲 杉
Picea Fictus
緘 默 的 舊 有 混 凝 土 建 築 物
如 今 不 多 說 話 了 , 它 們
退 回 己 身 , 模 仿 一 個
自 命 除 了 熱 愛 簡 約 主 義 和 效 率 外
對 任 何 東 西 都 莫 不 在 乎 的 黑 暗 洞 穴
因 此 公 路 兩 旁 的 植 物 終 能 自 由 地
以 一 種 隨 意 的 方 式 生 長
而 許 多 雀 鳥 仍 在 前 排 吱 吱 喳 喳 地 叫
如 秋 天 的 微 風 抹 過 我 們 的 臉 頰
送 上 一 股 傳 統 的 憂 傷
The muted old concrete buildings aren’t
Saying much these days. They have
Withdrawn into themselves, mimicking a dark cave
That pays no attention to anything but its own
Self-proclaimed love for minimalism and effectiveness.
Thus plants along the boulevards can now grow
Freely, in an aleatoric manner,
With many birds still chirping in the foreground,
Like autumn breeze glides across our faces,
Delivering a sense of traditional sadness.
然 而 不 同 於 渡 假 城 市 那 樣 的 永 遠
暴 力 般 禮 貌 , 我 們 無 法 預 料
今 晚 的 夢 要 訴 說 什 麼
造 浪 池 不 是 能 讓 魚 與 珊 瑚 繁 茂 的
地 方 , 而 不 久 , 他 們 將 會 把 許 多 垂 直 的
塑 膠 聖 誕 樹 置 種 於 售 賣
紀 念 品 的 商 店 外 。 我 們
應 該 為 它 們 冠 上 什 麼 植 物 學 名 ?
But we have no way to predict what story
Our dream will tell tonight, unlike those
Resort city that are always violently polite.
The wave pools aren’t places for fish and corals to
Flourish. And soon they will have many perpendicular
Plastic Christmas trees planted here outside
The souvenir shops. What
Species names should we award them?

ProTesT
Cem Turgay

Travelling Palm
Snapshots
Tamara Chatterjee
Uzbekistan (November, 2019) – We stopped
at the market on our way out of town, back
down the mountainous road to Tashkent.
The brief interlude between vast amounts
of melon and squash, naan and dried fruits
was a relief. In the end the small basket
of provisions provided sustenance on a
harrowing journey I wish never to repeat. The
worn tires and slippery slopes caused havoc,
numerous transport vehicles disappeared into
ditches. Eventually the snow was so thick we
could barely see out the windshield. Basically
the driver used the blurry tail-lights to gauge
the distance to his speed. We arrived late and
bruised from the torturous ride.

ART LOGBOOK
Holly Lee
Within One Vanderbilt, Snøhetta realizes SUMMIT, an immersive attraction which includes
Air, an art experience by Kenzo Digital
https://www.archpaper.com/2022/08/one-vanderbilt-snohetta-summit-immersive-attraction-air-an-kenzo-digital/

CHEEZ
Fiona Smyth

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https://oceanpounds.com/products/the-book-the-reader-the-keeper

An excerpt from
The Book The Reader The Keeper
DOUBLE DOUBLE August edition
Ushioda Tokuko
BIBLIOTHECA
photographs and
essay
200 pages, 8x10 inch (20x25 cm), paperback, perfect bound
Published by OCEAN POUNDS, 2022

[E] Back
The tattered spines. Third book from the left is a
book on theatre and plays. Collection of the Meiji
Gakuin University Library.

[E] Back
Waei Gorin Shūsei [Japanese English word forest
collection] 和 英 語 林 集 成 Collection of the Meiji
Gakuin University Library.

[S] Learning
A Japanese dictionary for first grade student.
The educator 深 谷 圭 助 FUKAYA Keisuke (1965-)
developed the “dictionary bookmarking” method
of study, in which children are encouraged to look
up words in their dictionaries and bookmark them
with sticky labels as a way of promoting the joy of
learning. Private collection.

[I] Tiny
Unused account book. Private collection.

[C] Face
Book decorated with gems. “Love is enough” by
William Morris. Private collection.

handwriting on thick, handmade paper, and even the corrections struck me as the work of a
master. The art book-like record of the academic group accompanying the Egyptian expedition of
Napoleon Bonaparte (photograph not included in book) is quite large and impressive.
In the Sea of Books
Ushioda Tokuko
I am in a vast sea of books. Like Pinocchio marooned in the great belly of a giant whale, I
feel a twinge of unease. As far as my eyes can see, herds and herds of books are quietly, somewhat
bossily, sleeping on the shelves. They seem to be ignoring this intruder with little prior knowledge.
Even the well-mannered buckets beside the books seem to be living a silent existence. My camera
and tripod are my only allies.
This is the storage of the Collection of Meiji Gakuin University Library. How shall I swim in
this ocean?
I am in a stupor. Setting up the tripod and loading the film, I began to prepare for the shoot.
Then I felt a little relieved and could finally glance around at my surroundings. I strained my eyes,
and there, writhing at the bottom of the stack, I spied the Webster’s New International Dictionary.
I wrapped it in the furoshiki that I had brought along and hung it on a spring scale. Webster’s New
International Dictionary, Second Edition is 3,214 pages in all, and it weighs 7.5 kg.
I reached for it fearfully and woke the sleeping book. I held it in my palm and leafed through
the pages as I stepped into the dense thicket of words. In the handwritten draft manuscript of Waei
Gorin Shūsei [Japanese English word forest collection] by the American missionary James Curtis
Hepburn, the words of the common people at the end of the Edo period are recorded and rendered in
meticulous Romanization, and I couldn’t help but read them aloud to myself.
Elsewhere in this deep forest of books, I encountered the first English-Japanese dictionary
published in Japan , A Pocket Dictionary of the English and Japanese Language nicknamed the
“pillow dictionary” or “pillow book (for its literal pillow-like form).” It was made of thin, smooth
textured torinoko paper, which, when the book is opened, forms a beautiful parabola from the throat
to the bottom of the page. Chirimen-bon [crepe-paper books] , which are foreign language translations
of fairy tales, such as Tongue-Cutting Sparrow [Shitakiri-suzume] and Grandpa Kobutori [Kobutorijisan]
, apparently were made as souvenirs for visitors from foreign countries. How pleasant the soft
surface touch is when you gently handle the paper.
The copper etchings of people that appear in French traveler Nicolas de Nicolay’s travelogue
of Turkey are so odd looking that I couldn’t help but stare at their various items of clothing and
ornamentation. They quite delight the eye.
So is the 4,000-page Japanese-English dictionary Saito’s waei daijiten [Saito’s Great
Japanese-English dictionary], published in 1928 by Saito’s Hidesaburō. Saito’s claims to have
compiled it without help from anyone else. Its dazzling gold lettering reveals Saito’s tremendous
determination. The illustrated, Japanese-bound Waeitsūin iroha binran [Japanese-English Handy
Reference Book], is an entertaining guide with instructions on things like how to read clocks and
many quirky tips for pronouncing words in English.
I took the small elevator down to the bottom of the sea, or rather, to the basement level two,
to visit the stacks. One or two librarians in aprons worked quietly amid the high-ceiling stacks of
the bare-bones, concrete South Wing. A heavy door blocked my path. I rested my whole body on the
handle to open it, and it gave a thunderous roar followed by a ringing metallic vibration. Therein was
a mechanical room with pipes running up and down the walls. The North Wing is even further down
the rabbit hole. Proceeding, I flinched as my eye caught a piece of paper affixed with magnets to the
second heavy door. The paper bore these thoughtful words: “Ushioda-san here: photographing in
progress.” I passed through it and entered the next space. There I found another sea of books spread
before my eyes. The smell of the books filled the entire space. I was lost in the act of photographing
there, soaking up the pleasure of being surrounded by shelves of books in the security of the rooms.
Time slipped away. When I was finally done, I put labels on the edge of the shelf as a marker
for the next round. The next day, not only could I not find the tag, but I might not even have been able
to reach the shelf where I had left off the day before. I tried to keep a relaxed attitude, hoping that
it would turn up later, but ultimately I failed to retrieve it. In the imposing stacks of cold, sunless,
inorganic bookshelves, where I was alone taking pictures, my sense of time and place grew numb.
Once I was late for a dinner party. Another time I couldn’t find my glasses that I had rested on one
of the shelves, and they have never reappeared after all these years. It’s like the dreamy story of
discovering a Shangri-la, but not being able to return there again.
It was circa 1995 that I conceived the thought of photographing books as objects. Twenty years
have already passed since then. The question of whether or not it’s enough to photograph a book has
always brewed in the back of my mind. Perhaps, after all, it was the magical power of the book that
kept me from ever stopping. How did I come up with the idea of photographing a book in the midst
of my restless life, and how did I end up sticking to it? “It’s a strange story,” I say to myself, as I look
back.
First published in Nihon Kindai Bungakukan, Issue 284, 2018, July 15.
And a youthful Richard Wagner’s handwritten score displayed his exquisitely neat

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