DOUBLE DOUBLE
Writings/ Photographs/ Poetry/ Archives
A Holly Lee and Lee Ka-sing online magazine. Published on Fridays.
李家昇黃楚喬網上雜誌，逢星期五出版
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
CURRENT WORK (1)
Sushi Grass in Paradise (A story)
written by Holly Lee
with photographs by Lee Ka-sing
(10) A Blue Journal
This is no ordinary notebook, so thought Mrs. Bento. Every once in a while she'd like to spend more time on the third floor library, touching this and that and hoping to find something out of the ordinary. Here it was a Pierre Belverdere journal, designed in fashionable Montreal. She loved the indigo blue, lightly padded faux leather cover, ran her index finger through the embossed line Thinking Through Our fingers, and wondered what was written inside. The writing appeared to be in the form of letters, all addressing to Vio. Could it be to Viloet, the lady who sold her the house? Who was the person writing? She couldn't withhold her curiosity and had already begun reading from the first page.
"My darling Vio,
I don't know much about popular music in present tense. Naturally, at my age I don't follow it any more. There was a time, when you were much younger, I did watch more carefully what kind of music you were listening to, like I needed to know your classmates, or the circle of friends that you were surrounded with. I knew you heard a lot of American and UK pop songs, I remotely recall names like Backstreet Boys, U2, Eurythmics and Celine Dion. Now you're always on you earphones when I talk to you, when I hand signal, you return with a frown, heavy metal spills out of your earphone as you put one down.
Can one's mental state be defined by the music one's listening to? Music, for sure, can change, affect or reflect one's mood. More and more your dad and I are turning to classical music. Part of it is psychological, a manifestation of being 'matured'. But the truth is, we enjoy the tranquillity, the rationale and order most classical music brings. We enjoy the lightness of our beings. Then the other day you asked, why are you listening so much Joni Mitchell these days?
Thinking back, it might be psychological too, a yearning to return to youth. Last year, after spending a night with good friends and driving a hundred and forty miles round trip between Toronto and Napanee, I drowned so much in Joni Mitchell's music that, like struck by lightning, I heard her calling, and longing to reconnect. For a full year I have been listening to all her songs, and reading whatever books about her I can find. I learned aspect of her I'd never known, and heard songs she made after 1975 that my head never registered. It was really a shock to myself - such a long blank period, neglecting altogether a person you loved so much!
My dear dear Vio, you don't know how much I loved Joni Mitchell when I was in my twenties. There was always a close connection, like looking into a mirror, like walking in her shadows, like sharing intimate conversation in whispers, like a, hmm, doppelgänger. I was not self-conscious and I never joined any fan club. It seemed so natural I wanted her all to myself. But where was that feverish person in this span of forty years? Where have I gone?"
Yes, where have you gone Madam Mystery, or the mother of Violet for all those years? Mrs. Bento surely has heard of Joni Mitchell in Hong Kong, the famous Both Sides Now song in a Cantonese version sung by Chan Mei Ling, or even the English version sung by Judy Collins. Whatever special about JM that MM boasted, the person she loved so passionately in her youth, drifted away for whatever reason or length of time, to Mrs Bento now, is just another lost and found. What's behind this storm of emotion and fervor to reconnect? And, to reconnect to what?
"Sushi Grass in Paradise" is an on-going story. To read the last chapter please refer to the previous issue of DOUBLE DOUBLE.
To read the full length "Sushi Grass in Paradise", please use this link
VINTAGE
Lee Ka-sing - EASTERN EUROPE FOLIO (work year 1993)
A suite of 20 pieces of vintage 8"x10" gelatin silver photographs (except one colour chromogenic print). Most of the photographs in that suite, were over-printed with an additional layer of images on the surface by means of a mono colour copying machine. These photographs are unique pieces.
The photographs were taken in a trip to Eastern Europe in 1992, with Holly and Leung Ping-kwan. We started from Berlin and travelled to several cities in Poland, then Prague. Ping-kwan left at Prague and returned to Hong Kong for some unexpected work. Holly and I continued the journey to Budapest. This suite of photographs was created in 1993, published in a Taiwanese literature magazine UNITA, in issue 103. It was a special section on our Eastern Europe journey, featuring Ping-kwan's poems and some of my photographs. There were altogether twenty-four pages. I designed the layout. At my request, the pages were printed with several spot colours instead of using standard process colours.
ARTIFACT
1992年底，我與楚喬及也斯去了東歐個把月。回來後，也斯寫了一組關於東歐的詩。台灣的聯合文學打算發刊也斯的詩，大家相討之下，配合我在東歐拍攝的一些照片，便敲定了一組共24頁的專輯。我負責版面設計。我建議也斯在首頁寫個導入的文字，內文是他的詩及我的照片，版面底部預留一白腳，他寫些旅途趣事筆記等，讀者閱來也有個多方位感。也斯寫在起首頁文字的題目是：東歐的一些房子和我們的一段旅程。
專輯發刊在聯合文學第103期，1993年5月號。下圖是內容的部分。
CURRENT WORK (2)
Lee Ka-sing
Photographs from "50 Gladstone Avenue 吉石大道50號" series
April 1, 2019 (medusa)
March 29, 2019 (microphone)
March 25, 2019 (plant)
March 25, 2019 (reflection)
OP EDITIONS
Lau Ching Ping
Untitled, (#96P0142)
8"x10", chromogenic photograph
(work of 1991, printed in 1996)
OP Edition, with "OP editions" blind-stamp
Edition 19/20, signed, numbered, dated on verso
Featured in the OP EDITIONS catalogue, issue 9601 in 1996
H+K COLLECTION
John Fiorucci
A pair of Cyanotypes
10"x13"each, in frame
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
DOUBLE DOUBLE
Issue 0405-2019
A Holly Lee and Lee Ka-sing online magazine. Published on Fridays.
Published by Ocean and Pounds and archived at oceanpounds.com
All rights Reserved.
Selective items in this publication are available at the OCEAN POUNDS online shop. For items featured in CURRENT WORK, VINTAGE, ARTIFACT, PUBLICATION, OBJECT, BOOKSCAPE and COLLECTION, please send a request to: mail@oceanpounds.com.
If you are a researcher or writer and want to use the material, please write us in advance. Some of the materials might have different level of copyrights involved.
Not to miss a single issue, please subscribe to DOUBLE DOUBLE Release Notification. Visit - http://doubledouble.org
DOUBLE DOUBLE previous issues were archived at -
https://oceanpounds.com/blogs/doubledouble
leekasing.com is a portal website for current and earlier works. Apart from exhibitions, Holly and Ka-sing use extensively web platforms to display photography and writing projects. Contact us for a detail list of links.
Holly and Ka-sing currently live in Toronto with their daughter Iris, and their cat Sukimoto.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++