This isn't typical of the posts I usually put up on the EAZB, but it's been an atypical week... so please bear with me! Over the last week I've been traveling to visit Alice, and also fighting off a head cold. A few days ago, some terrible news trickled out over Twitter & email: Korean supermodel Daul Kim took her own life in her Paris apartment. I heard the awful news Friday morning via email from my buddy Dan, living in Tokyo.
Some of you already know all this, and also some of you probably never heard of Daul Kim before. But as with the few other deaths I've posted about here & there on Same Hat, the untimely passing of Daul Kim hit me hard, in a strangely personal way. I can't exactly remember how I first heard of Daul (Dan, maybe it was you sharing a post on Reader?), but since then our friends and I have been following her awesome, revealing, and fascinating blog I LIKE TO FORK MYSELF closely. Daul's blog has consistently been one of my favorite stops on the internet, a mix of her candid imac photos, fave trance remix clips, her youthful and passionate/goofy poetry/stream-of-consciousness journal entries, the musings of a humane and odd girl. The blog will (hopefully) remain up for a while as an artifact and snapshot of the fascinating, surreal, and conflicted life that Daul was living for the past few years.
Daul was only 20 years old when she took her own life. I've found myself thinking a lot the past few days about it; How her life was this confusing and alien mishmash of extreme privilege and jetsetting. Daul went to a school with other rich & international adolescents, and became famous for her beauty. In her own words, she was "treated like a princess". And yet, she seemed oddly similar to a lot of my friends. Daul had written a photography/travel book about Seoul, she created short, haunting little videos on YouTube, read Russian literature & Japanese novels, did collaborations with her friends on Daily Projects & the Korean street fashion blog Your Boyhood, and she was a talented and weirdo painter of surreal figures and scenes. From her posts and her Facebook profile, it was always clear Daul was into the same milieu of artists, cartoonists, and directors as the EAZB crew: Shinya Tsukamoto, Wong Kar-Wai, Klaus Kinski, Kyle MacLachlan, etc. I don't usually muse so hard on celebrity passings, but she seemed like someone we maybe knew (or, at least, someone we'd like to hang out with).
I never met Daul in person, but I did have the pleasure of corresponding with her back & forth a few times last year over Facebook & email. We talked a bit about zines & comics, and I sent a package of postcards and zines to her in Korea last winter. Daul was supremely generous and nice to me, and told me she really liked my two zines, My Seat is Your Behind and Electric Ant #1. I was geeked, obviously, and appreciated her taking the time to indulge my nerdy messages.
I don't really have anything insightful to say, but I wanted to post something in tribute here. I know Daul only as far as she showed herself online and her public modeling persona. She seemed to have an envious, incredible life with the world and creative projects at her fingertips. And still, anyone who read posts by daulmonster knew she was prone to depression, ill-prepared to deal with some parts of "real life" and maybe too intellectually curious for the world she was a part of. I dunno. The thought of taking your own life, as a young person and as an atheist, confuses me, and facing the reality of it in both friends and famous folks is terrifying. More simply, I'm just fucking frustrated that we've lost another radical person to suicide, too young and with so much more cool shit undoubtedly ahead of them. Thoughts go out to her friends and family. She is already very missed.
PS: I wrote this post up on the plane home from St. Louis, and since went to ILIKETOFORKMYSELF looking for a few photos to add. I came across this post from June 2009, which sorta sums up a lot of the depth, privilege, childishness, and awesomeness of Daul Kim. I remember reading it the day she originally posted it on her blog:
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say hi ....to happiness!!! to be honest, living in paris was fun but also very very depressingi was used to getting anything i want at anytime since i was youngi used to get very upset or agressive or simply did not understand WHY sometimes i cant get what i want and now i realised, things dont work like thatin europe... almost more than 50% of chance it wont work out like you want, and people will be retarded about things and if you stress about it only you will suffer i knew the theory always but then its hard to accept it, and i told myself, before im 25, i will force myself to suffer abit in abroad to develop myself, cos i feel like when i get back home ppl treat me like a princess and i keep getting super spoiled....n alot of weird ppl so...i become caught upits better in korea i can focus on the emotional complexity of life its abit entertaining to deal with psycho people ... ... it kills time. its still a constant battle between my old friends telling me "Uve become so tough poor you! means u suffered" "its so un nessasory you learn these things you are gonna come back anyway" but im sure there is a way to become strong without being tough...ive been very happy recently. and im learning how to not be tough but strong.i lived a fast life and i wanted to end it as quick as possible and now days i feel like... everyday is kind of precious to me
Complimentary magnified reading glasses in restaurants? Heavy fines for people on public transportation who don’t give up their seats to us? Subtitles on British films? Hearing aids that don’t hum?
Online geezers with a serious case of nostalgia should navigate themselves to the embarrassingly named upchucky.com. Granted, the site is corny but when you dig a little into their jukebox you can blow the dust off musical treasures. While you’re searching the web entertain yourself with the likes of “Handy Man”. While tweeting listen to “The Sound of Silence”. Text to the heartbreak of “Tears on My Pillow”. The selections span the 40’s to the 80’s.
If your taste runs to the extreme cornball there’s a lengthy menu of old tv shows and commercials. upchucky.com click on “The Time Machine”
It’s not just massive, conscience-stricken corporations who can ease their guilt over their carbon emissions.
SFO now offers passengers the option of buying carbon offsets to allay guilt trips. Say you’re flying round-trip to Vancouver. Your flight would produce 1,186 pounds of carbon dioxide. Buying a carbon offset would cost you $7.26. The company in charge of this program is called Climate Passport and they have three kiosks at SFO located at the entrances to Terminal 3 and international terminals A and G. The money goes to organizations like the Garcia River Forest, a reforestation project in Mendocino County. These credits, in case anyone is asking, are not tax deductible.
How much do you really want to hear about your friend’s grandkids?
What details about their recent colonoscopy do you need to know? Is the spike in their golf scores all that interesting? Now that you’re allowed to be a curmudgeon, I suggest you instigate a system of cut-off times. Say “ I’d love to hear about your trip to Legoland….for 15 minutes.” “ Tell me all about your dental implants…in 10 minutes or less.” It’s rude but effective and if they’re really your friends, they’ll shut up at the appointed times. If Larry David can do it, why not you?
When was the last time you played anything from your fabled collection of LPs? What are you saving those 15 feet of vinyl for? The Antique Roadshow?
The sad news is that unless they’re in primo condition you’d be just as well off trashing them. But despite the sound of crashing retail music stores, there are still outlets in the Bay Area that might buy these relics if they are in excellent condition.
