Dog Eaters

Hanno & Hidada, Saitama

Posted on 10.11.22 under Uncategorized

After a night at Taishoukaku onsen, we went to look for Koma Shrine and stumbled across Shoden-in Temple. We came across Konishiki, the Samoan Ozeki sumo wrestler at the onsen at breakfast. He is good friends with Pastor Talo of New Hope Church as are we. That was an unexpected treat.

The mighty Konishiki. I will never forget his bout with Yokozuna Chiyonofuji when he threw him off the dohyo and landed on him. To Chiyonofuji’s credit, he was able to get to his feet and climb back onto the dohyo to bow. Not many would have survived being landed on like that.
TaishyoukakuOnsen
A chestnut!
The Men’s rotemburo

We then drove 30 minutes to Hidaka, looking for Koma Shrine. We found Shodenin, first. A really beautiful temple with ponds, exquisitely manicured bonsai, well-kept architecture — lots of nice stone and wood. There were only 3 people at Shodenin — tourists like us — none of them affiliated with the temple. It was a bit strange…

Some of the sponsors that funded the building and renovation of the temple
Wash your hands!
For the children…
Nio guardians

We found Koma Shrine just a little further down the road. There were lots of tourists and lots of ways to spend your money — religious merch!

Komo in Japanese as “Koryō” is the ancient Japanese name for Korea. At its peak of power, Goguryeo controlled most of the Korean peninsula, large parts of Manchuria and parts of eastern Mongolia and Inner Mongolia. Along with Baekje and Silla, Goguryeo was one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea.

In the late 6th and early 7th centuries, Goguryeo was often in military conflict with the Sui and Tang dynasties of China. Its relations with Baekje and Silla were complex and alternated between alliances and enmity.

In the summer of 666, King Yeon Gaesomun died and Goguryeo was thrown into chaos and weakened by a succession struggle among his sons and younger brother. Emperor Gaozong saw this as an opportunity and invaded, conquering the kingdom with the help of Silla by 668 AD.

However, there was much resistance to Tang rule. Prince Go Yak-gwang (高若光), son of the last king of Goguryeo, Bojang, sent to Japan in 666 AD to seek military assistance from the Asuka period Emperor Tenji.

After the fall of the kingdom, he remained in exile in Japan. In 716 AD he was granted Koma County in Musashi Province, and settled in this location with 1799 Goguryeo refugees, mostly from Suruga Province.[8] This territory included all of present-day Hidaka and Tsurugashima, as well as parts of Hannō, Kawagoe, Iruma and Sayama. The area continued to be ruled by the Koma clan until the end of the Kamakura period.

Following the annexation of Korea by Japan in 1905, the Koma Shrine was used as a symbol by Japanese government officials, including Governor-General of Korea Jirō Minami, for the assimilation and unification of the Korean and Japanese people.

Rain & Things

Posted on 10.07.22 under Uncategorized

A memory. A prophecy. A yearning to return to the source…

Intimate Strangers

Posted on 09.22.22 under Uncategorized

Engineered for pleasure
Engineered for pain
Trapped in a maze
Lost in a dream for days

Cut our dead flowers
From the garden of lust
Playing with fire
Catalyzed to combust

Intimate strangers
Well met but unknown
We chase the dangers
Deep in the zone

Brush up against them
And sparks fly through the air
No filter in their needs
They’ll do it on a dare

Lost in a dreamland
No husband or wife
Misunderstanding
the meaning of life

Intimate strangers
Well met but unknown
We chase the dangers
Deep in the zone

Lost in a moment
Of reckless delight
No thought for tomorrow
Just grind through the night

Planning ahead
As if we already knew
Anticipating the intent
of mutual carnal consent

Intimate strangers
Well met but unknown
We chase the dangers
Deep in the zone

Intimate strangers
Well met but unknown
We chase the dangers
Deep in the zone

credits

released September 22, 2022
Written, perform, recorded by Malcolm Wong
Tenor and soprano sax stylings by Jason Gay
Photo illustration by midjourney.com & Malcolm Wong

license

© all rights reserved

Experiments with Midjourney

Posted on 09.15.22 under Uncategorized

Intrigued by the results of a well-publicized winner of an art contest,

I checked out midjourney.com to see how easily I could dial in a image for DARK HIGHWAY, the image for the song. I just used a few prompts and came up with the two images below. Midjourney uses “available” images on the internet and composites them with A.I. No credit is given for the images used, obviously no payments are made for anyone’s intellectual property.


There will probably be copyright issues moving forward, but in this beta period, it feels a bit like the wild, wild west. In the future, there will probably be image banks where artists upload much like stock footage where payment could be determined on how much of an image was used in the final result.

The speed that digital imagery is being used in addition to illustration, i.e. video doorbell and surveillance cameras that can be accessed online is outpacing privacy laws and operating in a grey zone.

DARK HIGHWAY uses my own imagery, but in the future, maybe someone else will be using it…

Dark Highway

Posted on 09.11.22 under Uncategorized

You made a pact with the Devil
At the crossroads of your life
Too young for nothing left to lose
Too old to make that an excuse

Blast down a dark highway the signs are flying past
Watching the clock wind down the seconds tick by fast

Fighting to hold back the sunrise
Seduced by illusions in the night
Lost in the sequel of the game
It’s all different but the same

Blast down a dark highway the signs are flying past
Watching the clock wind down the seconds tick by fast

Can’t step back off the ledge once you’ve jumped
Scream free-falling down to your doom
Your money can’t erase the bloody stain
Prove that the demons were really slain

Blast down a dark highway the signs are flying past
Watching the clock wind down the seconds tick by fast
Blast down a dark highway the signs are flying past
Watching the clock wind down the seconds tick by fast

credits

released September 11, 2022
Written, performed, recorded by Malcolm Wong

license

© all rights reserved

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