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
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CURRENT WORK
Sushi Grass in Paradise (A story)
written by Holly Lee
with photographs by Lee Ka-sing
(41) The Family of Man
Despite its size, a good 8¼ in x 10 in, this sad, long neglected book not more than 200 pages suddenly came to live, touched gently by these hands, praised by these mouths regardless of its shabby appearance. Immediately after the prologue was a spread page showing the entrance into the exhibit The Family of Man, with an introduction by Edward Steichen, the curator of the show and a prominent figure of twentieth-century photography. But it was the page following that caught Wandy’s eyes.
The photograph appeared on the left was a bird eye’s view of a river running between a rugged, mountainous landscape. Reflecting sunlight from a misty sky the river looked like a silver python snaking between the rich black mountains. Just as her heart was full of praise of this astounding image Wandy found the caption on the bottom: China/Dmitri Kessel/Life. Taken back a little, she realized for the first time her strong feelings toward the heaviness of her motherland. This image was so atmospheric, history of the land so tumultuous that only a person from a country of equal intensity can detect. Her instinct was right, the photographer Dmitri Kessel was from Ukraine. The river was Yangtze, the shot taken in 1946 during the Chinese Civil War. Immediate to the right, the top half of the page was occupied by some texts, while the lower half was an image of, as the description went: An American soldier kissing his English girlfriend on the lawn in Hyde Park, one of the favourite haunts of US troops stationed in England, 1944. War time, yet they shared a moment of being romantic…was the soldier still alive after that fateful year? Wondered Wandy as she slowly ran through the texts below the image.
…and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes
and then he asked me would I yes…
and first I put my arms around him yes
and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes
and his heart was going like mad
and yes I said yes I will Yes.
James Joyce’s Ulysses! The last words by Molly Bloom, in her eight enormous ‘sentences’ soliloquy. What a spectacular layer added to the image! With her heart beating a little wild, Wandy passed the book to Yoji and Bill, who sat next to each other and asked them to look at the incredible pairing of image and text. “Who did the texts?” Bill examined the front, back and inside pages of the book. He found credits of the working team on the back cover. The prologue was written by Carl Sandburg, an acclaimed American poet, while the texts inside were quotations from world literature, selected by Steichen and Sandburg, and also with the help of Dorothy Norman. Dorothy Norman was ‘an American writer, photographer, editor, arts patron and advocate for social change’, and who, despite her achievements in these fields, was primarily known in the photography world as having been “the other woman” in Alfred Stieglitz’s life. The unspoken rivalry between she and Georgia O ‘Keeffe was immense.
“Let me have a better look.” George leaned over to Bill and took over the book. Picking up the corner of every page carefully, he studied each image with extreme care. “Without doubt these images are amazing, they came from the eyes of the best photographers in the world. But I’m more struck by the printing quality of this catalogue. It’s the kind of black and white printing we cannot find today. It has the delicate tones and richness of I would say, almost platinum prints, the black is richly black and the white shines like, like silver…amazing.”
"Sushi Grass in Paradise" is an on-going story. To read the full length version with previous chapters, please visit- https://oceanpounds.com/blogs/sushi-grass-in-paradise
CURRENT WORK
Photographs by Lee Ka-sing
50 GLADSTONE AVENUE, a documentation (November, 2019)
Two cats
The bird
Dry hibiscus
Bath (Shelley Savor)
The park (Holly)
Bow (Kai)
(Frog King)
Cow (Malgorzata Wolak Dault)
Manhattan (Chi-wo)
Dunhuang (Holly)
Tree inside the study
The park (Holly)
Chandelier
Peter Suart (Holly)
Bedroom
The door angel
CURRENT WORK
A Poem by Holly Lee
Art Bus Tour
I’m already sorry for time past
ticking taking
frames after frames after frames
Time present
is to say goodbye
to time past
hello time future
Window fogged
people’s breaths
racing on Don Valley
the river has a history
like every river
Lean back
I could’ve driven
but prefer a chauffeur
this day with rain
At the building of Richmond 401. Marianne is late. But then there are more late comers, five more, all wrapped with scarfs and geared with Tim Hortons, Starbucks or whatever. Same group of people, senior art enthusiasts all the time, with the exception of a few. Organizer Desaree starts to call names. We stop again, at the sidewalk of cafe ’WhataBagel!’. People sit facing the large window sipping their cups heads down chatting on their iPhones. I think of a Robert Frank’s picture, seventy years earlier.
I’m learning to be a senior
without ever learning my youth
like a car exiting highway
not without danger
Time is fast
time is slow
time got taken
think you’ve gained control
then every future
will become your captive
only to
slip out of your hold
There is no present
the moment you feel it
it’s already on road
like the scenery outside
like this fuzzy window
more shadows passing
no matter how many times
You wipe it
Nov 2, 2019
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DOUBLE DOUBLE
Issue 1115-2019
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.
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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.
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