MUSED: LA 2 HOU
MUSED: LA 2 HOU
MUSED: LA 2 HOU | Chiwan Choi | Welcome to Wolfhouse
I’ve known Chiwan Choi for over a decade. We first connected through our photography of Downtown Los Angeles on Instagram. Like me, he woke up early to take quiet walks. While he traversed his Historic Core neighborhood, at the same time, I was wandering the...
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This is Melissa Richardson Banks. This is Mused LATU. I've got Chi-Wan Choi. Yo, how are you? I'm good.
SPEAKER_03:I'm good.
SPEAKER_00:I went back on Facebook to see when we met and it really wasn't when we met. It's when we became friends on Facebook and it was October, 2013. What I really recall was seeing you on Instagram because you were one of the few people like me in downtown Los Angeles that was getting up early and photographing what you saw. And I recall you had a dog. Were you walking with your dog or why were you up so early?
SPEAKER_03:Um, I just wanted to like walk and take photos right before the sun came up. And I think Instagram was like impetus for that too. You know, like, Hey, I want to post photos on this. So like I was testing out like VSCO app and stuff like that. And right, right before the sun came up is when people were waiting for the bus to go to work. Some people were waiting for the bus to go home from work. And it was like, there was like trash everywhere. Cause like, That would be the time, like all the trash from the night before I was still out. But it was really nice. I mean, it made me remember downtown LA before people started living there en masse, you know, because it was quiet and empty and surreal in so many ways. I did have a dog, but I didn't walk her at that hour. I would walk, take that early walk, come home and then take her out again. It's funny, like all the homeless people like started recognizing the dog. They'd say hello. It's like, how's your dog? Stuff like that. There was one guy, eventually, you know, my dog, Bella, she lost one of her legs, her front right leg. And there was one guy who kept saying, I'm building like a leg for your dog. So like for a couple of years ago, I'm almost done. Like I'm building a leg for your dog. And I knew he wasn't, but he really wanted to do this. Even when the dog wasn't with me, he would go, hey, I'm still working on that
SPEAKER_00:thing for your dog. Oh my God. Oh my God. Dogs are a universal connector. I mean, that's pretty amazing. As I mentioned, I remembered that the dog in being part of the story, but I never saw the dog in the pictures, but I just vaguely recall that you would mention it in your writing. Now, dogs actually are what really got me to photographing too. So that's about the time, about late 2011, early 2012 is when I think I started doing Instagram. So it's about 10 years as a photographer. And then that's when I saw your work and you were just literally blocks away from me. I was in the arts district. You were in what is called the historic core of downtown Los Angeles. And you were seeing different things at the same time of day. And it was just really, it was like we were co-creators. playing you know it's like children but we're on different parts and it was like oh it's you made me really reassured because you were out there at the same time and you saw the same sunrise but from a whole different perspective
SPEAKER_03:yeah it's wild how we were just few blocks away and it was our our what the things we were capturing were so different
SPEAKER_00:I loved it. I loved it. And so then it really wasn't until later that I really had a chance to meet you. But I looked forward. I felt like I knew you already before I was finally introduced to you. And it was amazing because I already felt like I knew something super personal about you because you were not only writing or at least sharing those photographs, you were writing short words about how you were feeling that morning or what you had been working on the night before and the one thing you always included in your post is something I still do today do you know what it is You dated it. It was like a daily diary and you would do like 03.02.2021 or in that case, it was early. And I thought, oh, that's great because I can go back and I can go back and look at this because it was really my visual diary. And what it demonstrated to me is that it was your visual diary. It was your journey.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, like I just wanted to catalog. I think the date and time and stuff, like I realized, oh, I guess that's important if I want to catalog. And when I first started out as like, hey, it was more like an external thing of like, I want to take pictures. It became, hey, I want to catalog my days for my own memory and my own history.
SPEAKER_00:Wow. And we were going through this I don't know about you, but for me, it was also this growing sense of loss because first it was a growing sense of awareness and I was just really discovering my neighborhood. I was discovering downtown. I had the ability to do that. And then all of a sudden I kept looking at my photographs and realizing that things were changing. And so ultimately the change progressed over a period of years to something else, but it really heightened my memories, my bringing up the memories. It brought up a lot of things in my life. Did that happen to you?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I mean, that's a really great point. Like, I don't think I was thinking of it at the time, but now that you say it, it's like, yeah. Yeah. I think that was a huge driving thing of like, I know I'm walking the same path every morning. I know I'm pretty much taking pictures of the same few blocks, but why, but what is changing? What is changing from day to day to day? And then, I mean, you don't notice it because you're going in increments of day to day, but then when you look at like here and then they look at photos from here, you're like, whoa, so much is happening so fast.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it was a crazy time. And it wasn't until I got to know you as a poet or, you know, I shouldn't jump ahead to the poet because I want to talk a little bit about the progression of really how we came to be as friends. And I didn't give you a proper introduction because I didn't really tout all the wonderful things that I now know about you, but I just knew you as this amazing human being who was sharing what he was observing and at first my introduction to your observations was through this photography and then later your words and then then your words that were not only these poetic words but these observations and it's been really beautiful for me as your friend to also step back and see all of this because you're very you're exposed in a very beautiful way and there's a vulnerability that I admire. So I just wanted to share that with you. Thank
SPEAKER_03:you so much.
SPEAKER_00:I really always appreciate it. And I don't see you enough in person because we both have had a journey in the past few years. So I left California in 2016, almost five years ago. And then tell us what happened. What's your journey from LA and back?
SPEAKER_03:Well, in 2014, My wife, Judy, got accepted to a PhD program out here in Pittsburgh at Carnegie Mellon. And it was going to be a long program, like six, seven years. So for the first year or first couple of years, I really didn't see her much because I stayed back in L.A. My parents were there. Most of the work was there. So I would fly back. I would try to fly back a little here, a little there. But when lease came up and they raised the rent by another$500 or whatever, it was like, this is ridiculous. A student and a poet should not be renting two apartments. So, yeah, so we gave that up and then sort of like floated around, crashing on friends' couches and things for like a year or two. And then basically I said I came here to be with Judy full time because it wasn't fair. It wasn't fair for her for me not to be here supporting her. Like... Not financially so much, but just like with other things. So I've been here in Pittsburgh pretty much full time for the last couple of years. I mean, last three years or so. Obviously, this past year, everybody's been at home, so I haven't really traveled. Yeah, so I never thought I would end up living in Pittsburgh, but here I am.
SPEAKER_00:I love Pittsburgh. My story about Pittsburgh is that when I was married many years ago, well before you and I, long before you and I met, and I remember I went from Texas to the Midwest and then from the Midwest to Texas, then Texas to California. So when I was living in the Midwest and It was just fresh out of being in Texas. And what struck me about Pittsburgh in particular, because we went to go visit a friend, my ex-husband was in the PhD program at Ohio State in Columbus. So we drove to Pittsburgh and I loved it. Of course, all I'm thinking is flash dance, the first thing. Of course, I remember flash dance on the incline train and I got on the incline train. But what really struck me about the city was that it had very distinctive neighborhoods, which I don't recall having that experience growing up in my small town in Texas. It, it, you know, you could go in Pittsburgh and in the architecture, even not even just the businesses, but it'd be, oh, that's a Polish neighborhood or this, it had very distinctive neighborhoods. And I don't know if it's still as distinctive if that was it for me, it was just very distinctive. jarring because it was just such a different experience than what I had growing up in small-town Texas. How is Pittsburgh in your eyes?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah. It's super segregated. I mean, it's got all the problems of cities that have been hyped recently. which is, you know, all the tech companies came in here, built like headquarters. So like there's a huge Google thing here, Uber and all this. So which means like, you know, housing projects with like a couple hundred units are just being demolished and destroyed overnight to build like Whole Foods and shit like that. So it's, you know, like, I mean, I don't understand it because I don't understand how townships work. So it's like, I walk from here to the bar down the street and apparently I've walked through like three different townships. I'm like, I don't, I don't understand how townships work.
SPEAKER_00:Don't get me wrong. I actually love Pittsburgh. It was so good. I mean, if the food, I mean, I really enjoyed it was different, but it was just the distinctive, you know, had this really interesting way to set up and it just, you know, coming from this crazy place. And then of course my mind was just the flash dance. That's all I remember of Pittsburgh before my experience there, but that dates
SPEAKER_03:me. You know, we, when Judy and I were first dating, we used to joke a lot about the scene from Basquiat where Andy Warhol is like, let's go to Pittsburgh. So we used to joke about it. And then we end up here. It's like, God damn it. We shouldn't have joked about it.
SPEAKER_00:It came to fruition.
SPEAKER_03:Oh my God. Yeah. I was like, son of a
SPEAKER_01:bitch.
SPEAKER_03:I mean, I see why people love it here, but it's just not my, thing, not my thing. So, yeah. I miss Mexican food. I miss Korean food.
SPEAKER_00:There's a longing you miss. I know I had all those things, but I've learned it because now I'm in Houston after being in LA, you know, for 25 years, I was in LA longer than I was in Texas and I grew up in Texas. So I've learned to appreciate what's, what is different and what is the same. I mean, there's a lot of similarities. And so I don't want to embrace too much of the similarities because then you become kind of like those people that go out of the country to travel. And then they just hang out with people who are from the same country or just other like themselves, or they go to a McDonald's You know, or whatever. Right. So they want something that's familiar. So I think we need to touch a familiarity, but I think we also need to spend some time being just being a tourist doing something new and embracing what it is. Right.
SPEAKER_01:Sure, sure, sure. So
SPEAKER_00:I'm laughing. So, so we started with how we became friends, uh, how I first met you. Then I finally, again, I, I just really got to know you in person, right? When you had the DT lab at the last bookstore. And I will tell you that I was this close to going to one of the, that's when I first met you when, when it was going away. So I was planning to go, we were going to do something together and then all hell broke loose. Do you, do you
SPEAKER_03:You got kicked out.
SPEAKER_00:But why? Because you were successful. That's why.
SPEAKER_03:Because, I mean, like, you know, there's all these industries and businesses we love, like publishing or indie bookstores and like even like little local restaurants, mom and pop own places that we love and we support and we want them to flourish in the world of like Amazons and Whole Foods and shit like that. But then just because you own a bookstore or mom and pop store or you're in publishing doesn't mean you're decent human beings. so i
SPEAKER_00:get it though we will go out there but i will tell you that i only went into last bookstore once because of that situation i've only been in that store once and everybody loves that place and i was so excited because it's just about the time that i published my photography book and i was like okay let's sell my book we'll do a thing and yeah i think we were planning to do something like a session and then it was like oh yeah We're not doing that anymore. Okay. So we'll move on from that. But what I really loved is how you moved on from that. I, and it was probably something I saw you post today, something like, oh my God, I'm in my head over my head again. And I do the same thing, but I mean, I don't want to get you crazy here, but remember 90 for 90. I love it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:The first
SPEAKER_00:one or the second one? Let's start with the first one. But that's how you transition. You took DT Lab and you said, okay, screw it. We're not in this venue. We're going to do something different. And I really loved what you did. And you did it for two years? Is that what I... I just remembered.
SPEAKER_03:90 for 90. We did it in 2014. And then we did it again in 2017. And we were actually thinking about doing it like this year. before a pandemic.
SPEAKER_00:Why not do it virtually? Let's do it. I love that program. Is it too hard to do virtually?
SPEAKER_03:Because we would have to think about what it is, what it is and what it isn't if it was done virtually and try to figure all that out. We didn't want to just do it just to do it because we learned a lot after the first
SPEAKER_00:one. Tell everybody what it is. 90 for 90 is...
SPEAKER_03:9490 is we decided to produce 90 events literary music arts events over 90 consecutive nights inside a bar and ended up being inside tracks at Union Station but it didn't start out there it was at Cafe Figueroa for about two weeks before we got kicked out of it We tend to get kicked out of that.
SPEAKER_00:Wasn't that that big? That was
SPEAKER_03:the
SPEAKER_00:big two-story place, right, for a
SPEAKER_03:while? Yeah, I don't know how that place was open. I literally saw no one in there ever.
SPEAKER_00:I know it didn't survive longer than a year or two, but it was a beautiful space.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it shut down pretty soon after we got kicked out.
SPEAKER_00:Well, hmm.
SPEAKER_03:Well,
SPEAKER_00:so you did in 2014, 2017, which I missed 2017. Cause at that point I was just going back and forth and that's the, I actually got finally got rid of my loft. I was like you and Judy. I basically kept a place in LA and kept a place in Houston and it was exhausting. It was financially challenging and it just was too much, but I do hate couch surfing when I come back though. It's still a little bit. You know, it's kind of hard and it's going to be difficult now with.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it's weird. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. But your parents are still there. And that's what's interesting to me. But I want to go into that a little bit later. But I know that that's you do have family there, but that's not necessarily where you would stay.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. I mean, I can't stay with my parents because, you know. They're in the tiny apartment.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Well, I'm going to go back to them because I really, there's so much, your family is a big part of, at least I feel like, in your writings today. And so I really want to loop back to that. But so the 9590, and then you started doing, I remember Cultural Weekly. You're still a writer. Were you part of the ground floor of that happening? Or I just know you were one of the original writers.
SPEAKER_03:No, the publisher, Adam Leipzig published, He...
SPEAKER_01:Oh,
SPEAKER_03:shit. My phone just thought I was like... He... I didn't know about Culture Weekly. I knew some people who were writing for it, but he contacted me through connections and asked me... He had been running it for about a year or so by then. Just a handful of writers... asked me if I wanted to write something for it. And it was at the time when I had just like stopped writing. I was like, I'm not going to write. So I was like, no, I'm not really interested. And then he contacted me again. I was like, well, I'm not really interested, but we chat. And I was like, you know, I will write only if I get to write what I want. He's like, okay. And I was like, well, what I would like to do if I was to do it was to write a weekly column just talking about what we're doing as a micro publisher in LA. And decided to call the column Literary Alchemy. And then just every week, I just wrote about what we were doing, including this week. We work on this manuscript this week. We try to find the venue for this event. And that sort of became a thing. I did that for like 80 weeks, I think. And it was interesting because that gave me a place to actually write about stuff like the last bookstore event. about getting kicked out of there, about an incident that happened at Beyond Baroque, just because it was part of, you know, what the column was. So it's interesting going back and looking at it now, some of the stuff I wrote about Corn. Wow.
SPEAKER_00:Another diary
SPEAKER_03:for you. And then after that, yeah, after that, like 80 weeks of writing this, yeah, Adam and I talked and he was like, why don't you come on as an editor? So I did that. So now we're in another huge transitional phase where Cultural Weekly is going to become Cultural Daily. So we're going to publish daily. So that's been like a big task.
SPEAKER_00:What's interesting is Adam early on had asked me to do something to write about my outpost there at the arts district. And then I just didn't have, I really wanted to, I just didn't have the bandwidth at the time, but I need to go back and look at- Yeah, yeah, yeah. You guys were neighbors. So he was always very supportive of my photography and my work in the arts district. And so I-
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, he's pretty great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, he was like involved in, I think- Starting LATC.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, I didn't know that.
SPEAKER_03:So yeah, way back when. Yeah,
SPEAKER_00:I guess I need to chat with Adam lately. People who know you professionally and who don't get the privilege of getting to know you in a different way. Maybe they're not a Facebook friend because that's really where you also kind of share some of these wonderful nuggets. But let's just talk hashtag tailoring.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, man. So I was looking at Facebook today. Oh, memories.
SPEAKER_00:Tell them what it
SPEAKER_03:is. Like 2014, where I decided I was going to do nothing. Like I wasn't going to listen to any other music except for Taylor Swift for the whole year. So, yeah. And the reason was, you know how there's something about a perfect pop song that just immediately connects to your emotions? It just bypasses your brain altogether. It goes straight to your emotion and just connects. Where you're crying about some silly song, it just... And I was like, wow, I think that's like the holy grail of writing for me. Bypass everything and just go straight to connect with someone's emotion.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, so I never... Am I in on it? Is this truly a love of Taylor Swift? Or did it start off as not being? And then do you have an appreciation for her now? Because I'm really curious.
SPEAKER_03:Well, no, what happened was I was like... Yeah, yeah. What happened was like, okay, so I want to study the perfect pop songs. And then I was like, Taylor Swift had, to me, was like perfect pop song. Right? Even though at the time she was still like country pop. I was like, so I'm going to listen to her. And it just became a thing where I was like, this is like my favorite music. You know?
SPEAKER_00:So you're truly a fan. You're a true. Oh, my God. Wait, you got a Taylor Swift shirt. Oh, my God. It's a hoodie.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I got like two hoodies. Can you read that post from 2015? Do you have it handy? I'll read it. I have it in front of me because I saw that. Do you have it?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I was just. No, that's just lyrics from her song.
SPEAKER_00:I want to hear you. I want to hear you share it. Can you read it? Do you have, is it on your screen or could I put it in the chat box for you?
SPEAKER_03:Let me, let me grab
SPEAKER_00:it. Here I've got it here. It was in my notes. There it is. It's on the, it's on the screen.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Well, that, that really, I, that was my biggest question. Are you, I was like, are you truly a fan? How did this, you know, come about? And when I, I, I kept seeing you really, you were singing her praises over and over and I know you sometimes those comments can be tongue in cheek, but it's genuine and it's a genuine appreciation and I love it. I just love it. Okay.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. It was a funny thing because like beyond the, what started, it started out for me as an experiment also, but you know, but it was something I already liked and, but it was an experiment to see if I could figure something out about it. But it led to all these external things that were so fascinating to me that brought up like masculinity and like all this stuff is that especially guy friends were like, you can't be serious. Like, were constantly upset with me. Like, basically questioning, like, what does this mean about you as a guy listening to Taylor Swift? Right? Even though those weren't their actual words, that's what the question became. So I found that so freaking fascinating. And then it also, like, became a thing. Like, I have so many, like, Facebook friends who connected with me because of Taylor Swift. It's like, and they're like not necessarily like poets or academics or anything like that. It's just people who genuinely like the thing. And it's like, and it opened up this whole other space. So actually like when I wrote my last book, The Yellow House, like that's all I listened to. So yeah. like original title for that book was called Taylor Swift. Like my working title for the book was Taylor
SPEAKER_00:Swift. Oh my God. Do her people know
SPEAKER_03:this? No, no, I wish. And
SPEAKER_00:again, cause I kept thinking, is this, I wasn't sure if you were serious. And now, I mean, I go back, I mean, you were always very open and honest. It was never anything that was, you know, nasty or mean or anything else. So I, I mean, you were genuine, but I didn't know if it was a genuineness that was part of a, I didn't know if I was part of a joke, you know? So I, so it's really, it's really cool.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. For a couple of years, people thought I was, it was still a joke that I was like some Andy Kaufman routine. I was
SPEAKER_00:doing. I thought you were a comedian. Okay. So did you find that, that, can you read that, that post? Did you find it? Okay, good. Yeah, yeah. This is... Yeah. Go ahead.
SPEAKER_03:This was March 2nd, 2015. And I'll go sit on the floor wearing your clothes. All that I know is that I don't know how to be something you miss. Never thought we'd have a last kiss. Never imagined we'd end like this. Your name forever, the name on my lips. I'm like, you know... People didn't say that was Taylor Swift. And they said, this is just a poem that was published in like New York times or some shit. People will be like falling all over it.
SPEAKER_00:I love it. I love it. No, it's beautiful. And I, I, I really started listening more to Taylor Swift. Cause I thought, well, I, well, I started listening because of you. Cause I thought, well, is there something I'm missing? And then I would capture some of that. And then again, I kept thinking, am I still part of the joke? Is this, you know, where am I? But I thought I'm appreciating it. And should I come out as listening to Taylor Swift? And I guess I'm coming out too. So I'm listening and listening to her words. So I'm coming out too.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Yeah. And she put out, you know, two albums last year during a pandemic. started re-recording her old albums because she can't get her masters back from a really screwed up dude. So it's like, you
SPEAKER_00:know. Pretty empowering. And I know you've surrounded yourself with a lot of empowered women and you're very supportive of women, Judy.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I've been lucky. I've been really lucky. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, my God. I love it. Yeah. I'm going to do one more thing that I think is out there. And you know what I'm going to talk about, but we won't have to talk about it too long. But I always I'm a closet bachelor, bachelorette watcher. And and I know you watched it. But again, I didn't know if I was part of an inside joke for a long time. But you would do these amazing things. Recaps. I mean, I think you're better than Bachelor Nation. You're better than anything that they are because you have this honesty that's like, you would say the things that you would want to, it's like you wanted what the characters would, and I call them characters. They really were the reality stars, but they were characters in so many ways. But I can almost envision the bubble coming out of, you know, with your words, what you would say the next day when we talked about, let's say Hannah Brown or some other past bachelorettes and so forth. And so tell me, how did that get started? Did you really watch the show? Was that part of your experiment, like you did with Taylor
SPEAKER_03:Swift? Yeah. I love television. I love all kinds of television.
SPEAKER_01:So, you know, Bachelor,
SPEAKER_03:there are shows like Bachelor that's not so much about just the show, but about the community of people watching it, right? So it's like, so the sharing of like live tweeting or sharing of certain things become part of the experience of watching it. And I think in that way, it, it makes it pretty special. But the other thing is for me, if you watch reality shows of any type, not just dating, but like, Whether it's like, you know, family that lives out in the woods in Alaska on the Learning Channel or some shit like that. You'll be able to see where politics is headed in this country like years before it gets there. You will be able to see it. Like... It was obvious, like, for example, Trump was going to win from all the shows I watched on the plane, all the reality shows I watched on the plane, which is always white people wanting to disconnect from the rest of society because they don't want to be bothered. You go, oh, yeah, this is where it's headed. So it's kind of a fascinating thing for me. So like this year, I skipped Bachelor because they had their first Black Bachelor show. and it was going to be a racist shit show. You just knew it was going to become a racist shit show from the history of the show. And of course it did, where Chris Harrison had to step back or resign his post because of that whole thing about, well, there's really no problem with these plantations. Right? So it's like, wow, this is so fascinating. You know, it's like.
SPEAKER_00:Oh yeah. Okay. Okay. So the last, last time I saw you.
SPEAKER_03:But my heart, my heart went from Patchler to Love Island a few years ago. Love Island is
SPEAKER_00:where it's at. But isn't that where, that also-
SPEAKER_03:Not Love Island, Australia, because it's garbage. Love Island, Australia is garbage with like garbage contestants.
SPEAKER_00:But didn't that also blow up at some point too? Like their host sadly passed away or something. Was that the same show?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, the original Love Island, UK, the host died of suicide. And it was after some big scandal hit the British tabloids.
SPEAKER_00:That's sad.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Wow. So I never really thought about the fact that bachelor is our, one of our, among our indicators of politics in the United States. Let's just wrap that up in a soundbite.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. I mean, there you go.
SPEAKER_00:What's the soundbite again?
SPEAKER_03:You heard it here first.
SPEAKER_00:Oh boy.
SPEAKER_03:If you want to know who's going to win the election, watch the bachelor.
SPEAKER_00:There you go. We don't need, we don't need the Lincoln project or any of those. I mean, we don't need even Fox news now. We can just watch the bachelor.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I'm going to go.
SPEAKER_03:And all those shows on the learning channel. That's the one.
SPEAKER_00:So I'm going to loop back to away from those wonderful experience, pop culture conversations. And I'm going to loop back to the last time I saw you, which basically ties back to the yellow house. And again, I love that the working title of the yellow house was again, what did you call it? The Taylor Swift book or. I
SPEAKER_03:just
SPEAKER_00:called it Taylor Swift.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Because it was inspired. So you were listening to Taylor Swift when you were writing The Yellow House. And that says a lot in a lot of ways. Now I see after hearing you share some of her sharing of her life, I can understand this now. This book really touched me and what you wrote here in a lot of ways now, but there's another whole Taylor Swift thing that's just, I have to wrap my head around. But because a lot of, this is a lot about how, your relationship with your father? A lot of it is.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah,
SPEAKER_03:yeah. What's weird is like, yeah, I always, I so often think I'm writing about my mother, but after I write it and read it, I realized I was writing about my
SPEAKER_00:father. That's what
SPEAKER_03:I got. It's this strange thing that, yeah, it surprises me every time it happens. Like, oh, I thought I was writing about my mom, but No. So. Our
SPEAKER_00:parents, it's kind of interesting. So about the time that you, this was released in 2017. I think I saw you, that's the last time I saw you in person was about right shortly after you published this. And I was on Spring Street. I saw you and Peter Woods. I was doing part of my back. Oh, yeah, I
SPEAKER_03:remember. I
SPEAKER_00:remember. Oh, I want a copy of that book. Yeah. So you ran back to get a copy. And somehow we found ourselves. I think it was during a downtown art walk. And we found each other again shortly after. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Really excited because you even signed it to the muse. You validated me. And I love that. But it was about this time when I saw you. Yeah. it was just right when my father died. And so I got your book.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, wow. I didn't know. Oh yeah. I do remember now.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. I didn't realize what I was going about to be reading. And so this is, this really triggered a lot of emotions. I had to put it down for a while and had to go back to look at it later because it was right after he died because you and I, our parents are, well, your, your father was born and raised in in Korea and immigrated here when you were younger. Do you have a brother? I have
SPEAKER_03:an older brother. He's four years older
SPEAKER_00:than me.
SPEAKER_03:He also lives in downtown.
SPEAKER_00:My father grew up in a mountain town, Idaho. Weirdly enough, there's just so many similarities. I think that's the wonderful thing about reading and writing and sharing is that we can find connections regardless of our cultural upbringing right um and there was so much that you shared about how your father interacted that were is very similar to my experience with my father now my mother I didn't become close to until later, until 10 years ago when I started photographing and she became a painter. And so I think I had a more similar relationship with my mother as you expressed with your father, because poetry is what bonded my father and I. And we're... He used to write me poems when I was a little girl because I wouldn't see him. He'd work full time at night and he would write me a poem and leave it in my pillow. And I would do the same when I was in middle school. It happened for a couple of years.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, wow.
SPEAKER_00:And I haven't really written since then. And then and then I, it was hard for me because I think what I struggle with when I read some of the vulnerability of what you share with your father is I remember how you have, it's a similar relationship than my older brother. And I remember watching it and not being able to help him. So that's what I feel sometimes when I read what you share, because it wasn't always directly how I had the interaction with my father, but it was also the interaction that I observed with my older brother and my father. And it was just beautiful, but painful. Right, right, right, right. It's a beauty and a pain and a pain. Was it cathartic for you, writing this book? You
SPEAKER_03:know, I actually got a lot of the question about catharsis with the book before that, Abductions, because that book was about our miscarriage and all that. And, you know... It would just depend on the day, you know, I was asked that, but I, the problem with writing it is like, yeah, you feel like you're writing it out, but because you've now written it down, you, it never dies and it just loops back. So there are days when the looping gets too much. And then there are days you feel like, Oh, like I did that. I, I did that. I spoke about it when you feel kind of at peace with it, but yeah, a lot of times it just keeps coming back because you wrote it and it, you know, and it doesn't hurt any less or, you know, sometimes it gets even more so overwhelming and yeah, it's, it's a strange kind of a thing, catharsis, like, I don't know if catharsis is a permanent thing or if it just depends on the day. Wow,
SPEAKER_00:I'm going to think about that because that's really, it's powerful what you just said in that way. And I don't think, I don't have your first book and I do need to get it, but I do remember you sharing parts of it online because I do remember now the miscarriage because that's why I don't have children. I wasn't able to have them and going through that. myself years ago, you have to, it's one of those things you don't normally talk about. So, and I think it's hard also for the father to talk about. So I look forward to sharing that painful experience because I think it's also helpful. It helps other people.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was interesting because I almost pulled that book, Abductions, like right before I published it. And I had to talk with Judy about it. Like, how do you feel about this book going out? Because obviously there's the singular experiences for each of us as individuals, but it's a collective experience also. So it's like, I know I'm writing it from the perspective of my experience, but I don't want to hijack it. Like I don't want to, steal the experience and throw it out into the world without you having a say in it. So that was a tricky
SPEAKER_00:thing. Now I'm seeming to recall, and maybe I'm wrong, but did you read an excerpt from that from the first 90 for 90 in 2014? I was here. Yeah, I had. You
SPEAKER_03:were there. I hadn't written after that book came out. I hadn't written in a little bit and I hadn't done any readings but one of my favorite poets in the world like one of my just like Douglas Kearney who was in LA who was living in LA at the time but no longer he had just put out a book called Patter that was about his family him dealing with. So when I found out that he had read my book, it was like, first of all, it was like, Oh my God, he read my book. Um, and secondly, it was like, we should do an event together. Like both of us reading about this topic and then just have a big conversation about it with people.
SPEAKER_00:Wow.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So with people sharing your work, it reminds me of a post that you said two years ago, you came across, I guess, a post from the New York University, NYU's Office of Global Inclusion. And there was the actor, Stephen Yoon.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And you went, whoa, he's reading my poem. Which poem was he reading? And how did you find out about it?
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:I don't even know what poem he was reading. Like I knew nothing about it. I was like scrolling Twitter one day and then like, like, because I was tagged in it, I didn't even realize I was tagged. It wasn't like even immediately I noticed it. Like I, it came up and I was like, what the? It was, and I was like, holy shit. How come no one told me about this? Because the character he played in The Walking Dead, to me, is the single greatest Asian-American character to hit the screen, like in movies, TV, whatever. It's just the greatest character of all time. So yeah, it was like, holy, holy, wow. So that was like a big thing.
SPEAKER_00:So I'm determined now to figure out how I can do this. But if you, if I picked up the phone right now and I had him on the phone and you were able to talk with him, what would you say to him? Well, what was the first, which was the first question? What did he read? You want to ask him that?
SPEAKER_03:Like what that, yeah. And also like how that came about, like whether it was something like someone selected and gave to him to read at the event or something he, I'm like, I just want to know. I mean, it's like I'm not growing up in L.A. Like you don't get starstruck, you know, you get over that real quick. But there's still certain people you're like, holy shit.
SPEAKER_00:OK, so let's make this a clip. So basically, I want you to say, hey, Stephen, what point did you read in blah, blah, blah. So just go ahead. You're talking to Stephen. Go.
SPEAKER_03:So. Thanks for reading my work at the event. Can you tell me what poem you read? I think it was from the abductions. And also how that came about, whether you picked it yourself or someone picked it for you to read. as a special guest and let's be friends.
SPEAKER_00:I'd love that. Okay, good. We'll find out. I mean, I have some connections in Hollywood. We'll figure it out. It would really be cool. I would love to. And if you do, I want to be a fly on the wall in that conversation. So I've noticed that you've been doing a lot of posts lately, and it looks like it's preliminary work that's ready for your next book that's coming out. And it looks like it's going to be called, the working title, maybe it's the final title, is My Name is Wolf. Is that the correct title?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that's the title of the book. And I'm planning on publishing it this summer and releasing it for free. in digital format, ebook format, audiobook format, all for free for download. Yeah, I just want to see what happens to the book if I just don't worry about the part about publisher and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_00:Wow. So I've been reading them. And again, I keep, it feels like it's a continuation. First of all, it sounds like, I'm assuming, to me, it feels like you're Wolf, okay? And that you're diving deep in having a conversation. Again, I feel like sometimes you're talking to your father again. Am I totally off base?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so The Yellow House is book two of a trilogy. So Abductions is book one. that's the one in abductions I wrote about the miscarriage from an alien abduction mythology so like it was the one way for me to write about it but that led to identity and immigration as abduction and all that stuff and then the yellow house continues that that's why there's like a character in there who's who's my daughter and she's at it in outer space and that theme still goes through it. And so, My Name is Wolf is the third and final book of that trilogy. And it started with the main character being, walking into the forest to die. That was the idea I had. And while, when it goes into the forest to die, he is met with a voice who teaches him the names of all the important things that have been in his life, including his own name. He still dies, but because he was able to name these things, including himself, there's a part that's become eternal. So that was the, that's the concept of the book.
SPEAKER_00:I love it. I can't wait. And so you're going to release it this summer. So do you have a pretty set time or is it like roughly June, July kind of leaving it?
SPEAKER_03:Um, not sure. I'm hoping July, but I'll have a better sense. Um, soon, hopefully soon. Cause I it's, what is it? March already? Um, so probably next month I'll start like putting together all the pieces are written into some sort of sequence, um,
SPEAKER_00:Okay, so I'm going to switch gears on you. I'm going to ask you just to, and this is going to be tough because you have a lot of, I'm sure you have a lot of favorites and you're going to want to be careful, but name some of your favorite poets. Let's start with poets, not just writers, but poets. Living and evidently deceased. Some of
SPEAKER_03:my favorite poets. Like I'm looking at the books at my desk right now. There's Justin Philip Reed. There's Khadijah Queen. There's Don Mee Choi, No Relation. And then there's like poets who haven't gotten a lot of publications or any at all, like who I've been able to meet over the past couple of years who I love. And Yeah, like, I don't... I think I get more... Like, I have a hard time reading work by people I don't like. So, yeah, it's one of those things. So my favorite poets are usually people I've met, who I've gotten to know, who I really like as people. And then their work becomes more important to me.
SPEAKER_00:What did you think about Amanda Gorman and her presentation? I'm just curious. You
SPEAKER_03:know, we had her at the Downtown Book Fest when she was like 15 or so, when we were doing the Grand Park Book Festival.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, yeah. That's when you sold my book there. Thank you.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Yeah. And I thought she was great. I thought she was great. And like, I mean, my own personal feelings about inaugural poems is, like, there shouldn't be any, but that's a whole different story, right? Like, I just don't feel like artists show in line with presidents. I mean, that's just a thing. Like, I used to joke, I was like, even if my brother became president and he invited me to come and read poetry at the White House, I would say no. I would say, screw you.
UNKNOWN:Wow!
SPEAKER_03:But that's just my personal feelings on that. But I mean, I thought she, her performance was amazing. You know, for me, I don't know what more you could have asked for from my inaugural poet.
SPEAKER_00:It was pretty amazing. Yeah. So there's a lot of wonderful things that are happening. You've always been a guy that not only are you writing and you're producing and doing all the things that you do, but you always have events. Not only is, let's start about the event that I'm not doing with you, because I saw, I've been watching you. I see that you often like to fulfill a need because I have seen a lot of discussion on your posts, like, oh my God, who's doing, why are they doing it this way? And it looks like that the You have a Facebook Live program that's going to be tomorrow, March 3rd, that is called How Not to Submit Your Points. And I'm certain it came about because you finally just said, okay, I'm very frustrated. I just want to tell you guys. So you're doing that tomorrow. And are you doing it with someone else? Or tell me a little bit about it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. It's not how not to submit. It's how to not submit.
SPEAKER_00:How not to submit.
SPEAKER_03:Because I just want... No, how to not submit.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. It says it differently. I'm going to change it. So how to not submit.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Because I just, I'm pushing for poets to start submitting their work to editors and publications. And I'll go over, you know, we'll discuss like why we don't, have this process to begin with, what we gain from it, what we lose from it, what are the options, things like that. Because it's just silly. I mean, like I was saying a minute ago, I like poetry from people I like. So if that's my feeling, why would I send work to a magazine where I might hate the editor? Why do I want someone who I don't respect judging my
SPEAKER_00:work? So it's really more about not how to submit it in terms of publication. It's more about saying, listen, you don't need validation by sending it to someone else to tell you that that's a good point. So here's another way to get valid.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. And also I want, I want, yeah, I want editors and publishers to actually, you know, sort of like A&R people in music, right? Like go out and find the writers. Like, go out and find the writers. Don't find the writer who's already been found. Go out and find the writers. You know, I shouldn't show up and say, hey, I just discovered Taylor Swift. Look, I haven't. You know what I mean? So it's like if, you know, publications with all this who are fortunate enough to have money, they want to keep publishing big names because it makes their business publications seem more prestigious and all that money just gets circulated within this little circle and it's like why what i mean what work have you done by asking some big name poet to send you their work like you have done nothing you've done no work absolutely no work so So
SPEAKER_00:it's saying, and it really is timely because we're all learning how to do different things. And we were doing this before the pandemic, but now we're really forced to do it. More people are forced to do it. So it's finding different ways, not only to share your voice, but actually, actually to get it out there. And I think that's really one of the most positive things that happened in this pandemic is that we have been, we've grown in a lot of ways. And there's certainly some terrible things that have happened because of this time period, the isolation, but I was isolated in a lot of ways too, but not forced isolation, but I, but I've learned so many other skill sets. And I think even by your innovative way about getting your work out there, I mean, on one hand, someone's may say, well, wait, you're not selling your book. How are you going to survive and make money? Well, it's not really, it's a balance, you know, it's not really about making money. It's getting your work out there. And then I remember something my father said is do something you love and the money will come. And it's like, really find something that you're passionate about. And that's how you'll be able to support yourself. But I mean that you're going to become a millionaire, but, but you'll find it.
SPEAKER_03:Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So maybe is, is that what you're saying? Cause people are going to say, I
SPEAKER_03:mean, there's a lot of, no, it's just, I just mean like, I say this all the time. I'll discuss this tomorrow is like, If I'm a filmmaker and I make a movie and I tell the world, hey, I checked myself into like, you know, testing new medication for five hundred dollars. I gave I sold like sperm for another thousand dollars or whatever the fuck it is. And I funded this movie. I shot it myself. I wrote it. I edited it. I'm even acting in it. I made it for$10,000. People go, amazing. You're Robert Rodriguez. You just made El Mariachi. You're a fucking genius. You're brilliant. Here's all the money you want. If I'm a musician, I go, I wrote all these songs. I recorded this myself. I engineered it. I... Worked three jobs to pay for studio time to record it. I put out this album on my own label. I'm selling it on the street. I'm selling it on Streamic. It's like, congratulations. You know, you're like Ani DiFranco. I don't know what the fuck. You're a true independent. Writing, if you say, I published this book by myself, they go, boo. This is not real art. This is not real writing. And it's like, screw you, man. It's like, why? Like, why is that still the policy? Like, why is that still the viewpoint on this? So. I
SPEAKER_00:love that because I, same thing with photography, the same thing, you know, with writing and photography, people kind of like, it's like they go, oh, you know, it's like, well, no, I independently published it. Well, oh, you self-published. And it's like with disdain. And it's like, are you?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:I mean, that's really when you just want to like resort to like responses like your mom.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think that's it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah,
SPEAKER_00:it's funny. That really led us to it. And it was kind of an impulsive thing. And I think it's because we both just like, let's not just talk about this forever. Let's get it done. And that was the decision. to do this hopefully weekly series that's hosted by you on Clubhouse.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I already got like 15 people who want to be guests on
SPEAKER_00:it. And it's called Wolf House. And I think the description that you wrote and we modified to fit into their little space, but let me just read it to you. So welcome to Wolf House, a place for poetry and discussion. Listen to works by and talk to some of our favorite poets who deserve your attention today. Join us in exploring their creative worlds. So that's something we're launching. I'm just going to co-moderate it just to help bring up the folks. It's your show. It's the Chuan Chuan. show it's obviously wolf house because it's tied into my name is wolf i'm assuming um and um and it's going to be launching on wednesday nights march 3rd 6 p.m pacific 8 p.m central where i'm at and eastern where you are 9 p.m and do you want to is it going to be a what what do you envision for tomorrow so it's going to be our inaugural show So what do you think? I mean, it could be just a conversation.
SPEAKER_03:Probably work. Yeah, probably working out, Kings. I'll read some stuff I've been working on. Probably stuff I write today and tomorrow. And then just talk about what my plans are with the book. Sort of like different things I'm doing and why. I think I might have a couple of guest poets on to read their work and just people who I know. We have a really cool conversation about not just poetry, but about everything. And then like, yeah, whatever I'm not, you know, I'm a Clubhouse newbie, so I don't know how things go. But if there's like a discussion time and question time, that would be fun.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I think the interesting thing is I'm sort of a newbie, but I'm more less of a newbie than you are. My experience is, again, having three moderators, one host and two moderators, one that helps work the room and bring people on stage, the other to deal with technology. But really, it's whatever format we want. And you're like me. We both have successfully produced live events. And it's just setting up. And I think that's really what I envision for you too, is that this has room for free flow and from flexibility. But it's an opportunity that I think we can just do like a normal live show that you would produce. So I'm excited about it. So it's a nice test for me too.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, me too.
SPEAKER_00:And I love poetry. Like you said, I'm not a writer, but I'm a big fan. And I'm really hoping, I've been trying to be inspired to write more. One of the, I guess, feedback, maybe criticism, really, that I got when I did my photography book, gosh, now almost... eight years ago, based on my photography over the past decade, was that a friend of mine said, I wish you had written how you were feeling, because we can feel it in your photography. We feel the emotion, but I would love for you had to say more. And I've been starting to do more of that. And so I'm excited about learning how to dig deep and write more. And surrounding myself with poets also is helpful because I love feeling how they feel and how they articulate because that's something I'm looking forward to. I want to conclude our conversation with something that was at the front of the forward, I guess, or at least just something you wrote in The Yellow House. And I think it just... is it really ties up really this part of the conversation, our conversation today. And you wrote, I chose poetry over honesty, then lived this unremarkable life.
SPEAKER_03:I think that was one of the last things I wrote when I was putting, finishing that book. And actually it was just part, and it continued onto the next page. But when I sent the draft to my friend F. Douglas Brown, who's also an amazing poet, the one note he gave me is like, break this part off into a page on its own. So that's how it starts the book that way. So it reads like a full word, but it's actually the first part. first lines of the book
SPEAKER_00:well it logically yeah this next one it says there were times when I wanted to share all the secrets that I held on to and I have to tell you that almost brings me to tears just that that section because I grew up in a house of secrets I married into a house of secrets and it took me many years living by myself mostly in the arts district and then did a of breaking out of that and learning how to have a voice because I've been taught to be secretive. And I love the next part of this, you say, but I was so afraid, and again, this is right to me, that I'd once again be taken to a new land with road signs that I didn't understand, excuse me, I couldn't understand. And I start over, excuse me, and start over, even as time was running out, all of us getting older, my family and lovers and friends. This next paragraph really gets me because I had a dream for many years that when I found my voice, I quit having that dream. And the dream that I had was that I was in this house and And it had many rooms and I kept going into the rooms and I could never quite get out of it. And one day I woke up after my divorce, after so many things had happened to me. I just moved into the arts district. I was starting over. And the last time I had that dream, I actually got outside of the door and my father was there. And I never had the dream again.
SPEAKER_02:Wow. Wow.
SPEAKER_00:But I dreamt it for decades. It was like this search.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And then this is the next paragraph, as you can imagine why this resonated. It said the search for the house of my dreams, haunted the one that I first saw as a child yellow in the winter of a place called home. And that just like this, this, this is a brilliant fricking book. for many reasons.
SPEAKER_03:Thank you.
SPEAKER_00:And then this in the back, I have not clue. It was Paulette. I want to say this to you. This is what I feel like this is something that my father would have said to me and maybe parents would have want for their children. This is what I want for you. He said to learn, to stand in the light and see the storm.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. It's funny. I wrote it the opposite way first. And I realized it wasn't true that I wrote it to stand in the storm and see the light. And I was like, that's not true. It's the other way you have to. Yeah. It was interesting. It's one of those edit things where you go, wow, that's true. That was really interesting how that happened.
UNKNOWN:Wow.
SPEAKER_00:So Chi-Wan, where would people find, where would they find things about you publicly today? Do you still have your Tumblr website? Do you still do your, do you have your own?
SPEAKER_03:I have Tumblr where I just, my Tumblr, I just mostly just like re-blog like Taylor Swift stuff and cat stuff and all kind of. you know, Tumblr stuff and euphoria stuff. But mostly like Facebook is where I'm probably like shared and not probably, I definitely share the most. And I run Facebook as unfiltered as I can. That's also something that started as an experiment years ago. I actually said to Judy, I'm going to, hey i hope it's okay that i'm gonna try to be as public as possible on facebook just to see as an experience this was like eight years ago um she was a teacher at the time so she had to unfriend me
SPEAKER_01:oh my god
SPEAKER_03:because you know people because like teachers were getting fired for stuff that their family members were posting on social media and stuff um Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And obviously you're on Instagram. So I kept it up.
SPEAKER_03:I'm on Instagram.
SPEAKER_00:As Chiwan is only Chiwan. And then do you have a website still then? I'm looking to see here. So, okay.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, the Tumblr is my website. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Great. I'm super excited. Thank you so much. Is there anything you'd want to say in closing? Is there something, a passage you want to read or anything that kind of sums up or just a statement?
SPEAKER_03:It's good to see you. It's
SPEAKER_00:really good to
SPEAKER_03:see you too. I don't know many people in Houston, so I've been worried about you.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I want you to come here. Before this started, I didn't...
SPEAKER_03:Remember, I was planning on going there. Remember, I was planning on going there.
SPEAKER_00:I wasn't going to be a pandemic podcaster, but what I was planning to do that you would have loved, I'd set up my home here. My home here reminds me of my loft in downtown Los Angeles, but two stories. So the upstairs is all open. And I had this table that was made of wood from my old loft building. And it seats six people. And I could have multiple guests on there. And we could have dinner and food And the audience can watch us. We'd all share a meal and then we'd have a live conversation like a salon. And that's what I was going to do. And I think that's what I, I know when this pandemic is over, let's
SPEAKER_03:do it. Let's do it. So
SPEAKER_00:that's why I kind of got discouraged. I had all this equipment. I bought it together and now I'm in a closet. So I'm ready to do that again when this is over because I am fully vaccinated finally. So that makes me happy. Are your parents vaccinated yet?
SPEAKER_03:They're ready to get their second shots this week, I think. Yeah, they had their first shot last month and I think they're getting their second shot either this week
SPEAKER_00:or next week. So maybe next fall, maybe 2022. Let's be safe. I mean, let's be real. But definitely, we'll do this conversation again and we'll remember this. But it's really, I mean, I want to hug you. I want to touch the screen and hug you.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But I'm so happy to see you. And, you know, I kept wanting to do this project and maybe we still, I need to do it. You've really inspired me again. But I think one of the conversations I had with you two years ago now was that I wanted to pair my photography with poets, see if any of it, you know, what does that photograph inspire in terms of their words or impact? What do they feel? And I still want to do that project.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, you should definitely do it. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. Well, this is it, Tim. I'm doing it. We're clubhousing and we'll figure it out and then we'll do it this way. We can move. Clubhouse is really awesome, but you can't record the conversation. So what I think would be nice is maybe we can continue this conversation. We can also pair it with an Instagram live as well, or a Facebook live. So it kind of gets audiences as well. So I'd be open for that. Maybe.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. I'm
SPEAKER_00:done. I look forward to learning about some of your favorite poets and learning from you. There's a couple people that I know. My poet base is not as strong as yours, so I'm looking forward to expanding my world. I do have a nice couple of Los Angeles poets that I really like. I'll have to see if you know them.
SPEAKER_03:You should get this book. It's
SPEAKER_00:called Wild Peach. It's by... S is it?
SPEAKER_03:Sean.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, Sean. I mean, it's Sean, but he writes it like that. Okay. I'll get that.
SPEAKER_03:Because he's a photographer. He's a photographer and a poet. So yeah. And he just got like, I think he's a finalist for the pen award. Wow. For a pen award this year for that book. And he's like super
SPEAKER_00:sweet. I've never been trained to write poetry, really. So is there something you would recommend to someone like me who I feel I'm a good writer, but is there an art of it?
SPEAKER_03:Write it like a journal. No, just write it like you would write a journal and then break the lines afterwards.
UNKNOWN:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, so you don't have to have a rhyme all the time. Like little Susie Q went to the store.
SPEAKER_03:No, just write it like a journal and yeah. And then break the line afterward.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. That's, and that's your, that's the best advice again is write it like a journal and break the lines afterwards.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And then I can become a poet.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. And no one will know that you, that's what you did. Don't just.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. You know, I'm going to share, I'll share it with you later to see if I'm successful. Okay. Thank you so much. I'm going to stop recording and we can talk a little bit about. Thank you.