Caveat: Elected Silence, Sing to Me

picture3. The Habit of Perfection

Elected Silence, sing to me   
And beat upon my whorlèd ear,   
Pipe me to pastures still and be   
The music that I care to hear.   

Shape nothing, lips; be lovely-dumb:
It is the shut, the curfew sent   
From there where all surrenders come   
Which only makes you eloquent.   

Be shellèd, eyes, with double dark   
And find the uncreated light:
This ruck and reel which you remark   
Coils, keeps, and teases simple sight.   

Palate, the hutch of tasty lust,   
Desire not to be rinsed with wine:   
The can must be so sweet, the crust
So fresh that come in fasts divine!   

Nostrils, your careless breath that spend   
Upon the stir and keep of pride,   
What relish shall the censers send   
Along the sanctuary side!

O feel-of-primrose hands, O feet   
That want the yield of plushy sward,   
But you shall walk the golden street   
And you unhouse and house the Lord.   

And, Poverty, be thou the bride
And now the marriage feast begun,   
And lily-coloured clothes provide   
Your spouse not laboured-at nor spun.

– Gerard Manley Hopkins (British poet, 1844-1889)

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Caveat: 명동과 남산골한옥마을

Brother Andrew and I went to Myeongdong to meet my friend Seungbae Lee. We met in front of the old cathedral – mostly because it’s an easy-to-find landmark.

We went for lunch at a Japanese place, where I had 돈까스 [don-kka-seu = Japanese fried pork cutlet]. I didn’t used to like donkkaseu but after my time in the hospital when I discovered that it was easy to eat with my broken mouth, I fell in love with it for sentimental reasons. So I had it and it was good.

Here are my brother and my friend at that restaurant.

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Then we went over to a place called 남산골한옥마을 which is a kind of tourist-oriented “Korean folk village” reconstruction thing right on the north end of Namsan Park on the southeast end of the Myeongdong neighborhood.

It was really too hot to behave very touristy, but we tried, and I took some pictures.

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Finally we gave up since it was too hot, and we spent over an hour sitting around in an air-conditioned convenience store drinking cold drinks.
Then we came back home.

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