Elyse Sewell

consumer reports

Fri, 16 May 2008 11:34:29 GMT

I got a new camera: Canon IXUS. My third. Aah. I'd been using a Cybershot; slipping back into the Canon operating system was like putting on a comfortable old pair of pants. I also got a new tripod to replace my horrendous "Gorrilapod." Never buy a Gorillapod. It ain't stable, it's hard to aim, it's not big enough, its litlle bubble legs get tangled in the camera strap, and it takes the fun out of autoretratos. No more!

I saw this in a Korean Burger King (just using the bathroom, not hamburgering): dump the leftover liquid into the portal on the left, then the restaurant reuses the cups and throws away the straws and lids. Why in the fuck are fast food emporia worldwide not getting down with this system?

The coolest thing at the Leeum Samsung art museum. Inside: naught but a bunch of wack celadon pottery and, like, Rothkos.

Bibimbap looks so fine through a camera's eye! This one was done right, with a raw egg on top. I get disgruntled when it's a lame fried egg that just breaks into albuminous frags instead of leaking all over and lubricating the components.

In other news, the agency is going to send my bulimic colleague home. She was asking after laxatives the other day and my roomie directed her to the nearest pharmacy. She came back working a couple of pills free of their blister pack and plopped down in front of the TV. A few minutes later, she gurgled, "Are these supposed to be all...waxy like this?" Do I even need to say it? Suppositories. Honey, go home to your mom and get the love you need.

stratum corneum

Wed, 14 May 2008 16:20:57 GMT

Been walkin a lot. Got jacked-up soles.

Today my leathery hobbit claws and I decided to do something about it. Not an action so drastic as getting a pedicure or using a pumice stone in the shower: we simply strapped on our Vans (nothing quite like the constellation of blisters that inevitably appears beneath a box-fresh Van, is there?) and went to a "Dr Fish cafe." Dr Fish eat dead skin; apparently there are full-immersion Dr Fish tanks in Turkey, but here in Seoul you can only get knee-deep. It costs five bucks for the privilege of wearing these hepatitis electric shock tickle-torture boots for fifteen minutes; if you're even a third as ticklish as I am, you will spend this time in the most profound psychological distress.

And for what! This is the "after" shot. Still jacked. My more deeply-callused heels had visible nibble pockmarks.

Omijacha, "five tastes tea" (I guessed that the five tastes might be petunia, Craisin, juice box [red], lemon, and Charlie Girl, but I got home and looked it up and it's plain old sweet, sour, salty, bitter, umami). This expensive bev was served in a bowl with a Lilliputian spoon for daintier sippin. I consumed it thus, drop by drop, until I was about halfway done, then picked up the bowl and commenced to swig. Hulk smash!

The omijacha came with these divine cookies: a very, very fine puffed-rice matrix with an exoskeleton of gummy syrup rolled in toasted seeds, crushed puffed rice or barley. When I bit into one, the interior pulverized and blew away in the breeze like cigarette ash.

Today was only the third time I'd ever seen this elusive street meat and the third time I burned my gun-jumping tongue on its magmatic blood. It's a soft, dense dough discus filled with molten brown sugar and nuts. The sugar inside is blisteringly hot (it was bubbling like a tar pit even as I took the pic) but still contains abundant large crystals, making for the best marriage of syrupy and crunchy that street meat has ever achieved anywhere.

ile maurice 2: quick pics

Mon, 12 May 2008 02:50:53 GMT

These nests were in the trees everywhere. I found this one on the ground.

This was a type of berry I'd never seen before: it was like a raspberry but tarter with tinier drupelets. The dude put a big spoonful of xtra-large-grained cane sugar on top and served them with a toothpick. Edit: Why, thank you, contrary_wise, thou supergenius of Google. The berry is Rubus rosifolius, the Mauritius raspberry.

carina

Sun, 11 May 2008 12:59:38 GMT

Mauritius! I got back to Seoul at 6:00am today after an epic layover and all-nite flight, still crusted with brine, Indian Ocean protozoa, airport scum, and Korean Airlines' bibimbap breakfast. What a filthy and bedraggled urchin bade goodbye to the hot photographer at the Incheon Airport bus stop this morning! Oh yeah, about that? Nah. He was nonresponsive. Unreactive. Benzene on benzene. No joke laughy-at. No Mauritian cane liquor drinky-with. No afterdark ocean divey-in despite a most enthusiastic invitation. I went and dove in the afterdark ocean anyway, concluding: what-ever!

At dutyfree on the way home, he bought a Marc Jacobs dress and some girly accessories, so it was probably the existence of his girlfriend and not my ludacris beachwear (and sandy right buttcheek) that put him off:

Or was it?

Maybe I had street meat breath:

(Baby guava with chopped chili, 10MUR [Mauritian rupee] = US$.39.)

(Roti with chili and potato curry, 10 MUR = US$.39.)

Maybe I didn't manage to ingest enough virility-enhancing noni? That shit tasted like sap and crap and I threw the whole thing in the garbage after one bite.

Perhaps he saw me in the grocery store snapping Fruit Chutney Willards and Barbeque Kracks and concluded that I was deranged...

...or just spasmodic.

More tomorrow!

ile maurice

Tue, 06 May 2008 12:01:49 GMT

I'm in a Mauritian internet cafe manning the helm of an ancient dreadnought of a PC. Should be out swimming in the brine using the sharpened dowel that speared my pineapple paleta to terrorize sea cucumbers. Sorry for the half-ass slapdash; I'll be here all week and predict continued LJ laziness.

viva korea

Sun, 04 May 2008 05:41:09 GMT

Beloved bunk bedmate The Canuck is about to leave Seoul; some Russian is arriving and the agency asked The Canuck to move into the male models' apartment for her last days so the new model can occupy her box spring.

"Ugh," she groused of the male models. "They smell like kimchi even worse than you smell like kimchi."

My brow furrowed and she tried to backpedal, but I got the message. Note to self: use more Listerine after consuming large amounts of fermented, brine-soaked chili cabbage.

rubbish mate

Thu, 01 May 2008 19:11:56 GMT

So, "I think you don't understand our culture" is a line that our agency uses frequently to placate disgruntled models. There are situations in which a girl genuinely doesn't understand the culture; for example, ex-roomie Kvetchka once heard it after she walked out of a job crying and demanded to be taken home to wash her overlacquered hair. Kvetchka, dear, we could totally get away with a shampoo break in Paris, but I think you don't understand our culture. Here in Korea, we must ignore discomfort and work diligently until the job is done, and the boss, not the pretty girl, is in control of the schedule.

I, arrogant prick that I am, fancy that I do understand the culture and have only heard this refrain after protesting true wacknesses. When I refused to get drunk at the agency's mandatory soju party: "I think you don't understand our culture." When two managers went rummaging through my and The Canuck's bedroom, periodically emerging with stuff like quilts and pillows to ask, "Where did you get this?" and I finally snapped, "Why don't you get out of our room?": "I think you don't understand our culture." (On second thought, maybe I really don't understand the culture because I still have no idea what they were looking for or why they were inquiring after the origin of our bedclothes. It is a testament to our ultimate passivity that The Canuck and I, sitting on the couch, just glanced up at each other, rolled our eyes, and turned back to our laptops as two women trotted through the front door, into our room, and started doing god knows what in there. Trying to ask about it would've just prolonged their presence in our hovel. Trying to protest resulted in, "I think you don't understand our culture." And shooing them away with brooms wouldn't work: they know our schedule and could come back to rummage at leisure when they knew we would be out. This zero-privacy situation is ungood. Doubleplus. I know this. But if you think there is any way for us to rectify it, you don't understand our culture).

Sometimes I omit seemingly-irrelevant minutiae from my Livejournal entries in the interest of streamlinin' my narrative. But plots thicken. So here's a previously unrevealed fun fact about my encounter with the tied-up bags of vomit in the trash can yesterday: in addition to the bulimia effluvia, I found two tied-up bags full of fecal matter and shitsmeared bath towels. These I discarded in the waste can next to the puke (one shitbag had been heedlessly flung onto the FLOOR next to the trash cans; ew).

Oh, if only I'd been home when the shit hit the bag, but I wasn't, so I must rely on The Canuck's description of what happened when some agency-dispatched rummager noticed all the bags of excreta newly excavated and sitting on the upper stratum of the waste can. Apparently, the agency owner stormed into the apartment shrieking, "GIRLS! GIRLS! WHO PUT THE DEE-DEE IN THE BAG? WHO DID IT? WHO DID IT? I THINK YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND OUR CULTURE! IN KOREA WE DO NOT DO THIS!"

Wait, they don't shit onto bath towels or in grocery bags here? This country is like so weird.

emesissary

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 02:20:50 GMT

I've mentioned before that Koreans recycle their trash fastidiously. Our apartment has four trash cans with color-coded bags for recyclables, combustibles, waste, and food. Every single person in this country is scrupulous about separating their damn trash except, apparently, my model colleagues. I'm sure they're all hunched over their laptops writing hate blogs about me right now: every morning I go digging through the trash fishing PET bottles out of the waste can, styrofoam trays out of the combustibles can, disposable chopsticks and candy wrappers out of the food can, then deliver some speech ranging in tone from the pep-talky, "Come on, guys! Look how easy it is to separate the trash! It's morally wrong not to do it, so let's do it right!" to the outrageously annoying, "Julia? Is this yours? Because I got it out of the food trash can? And this? Isn't food? Actually it is plastic? So you should put it in the waste can? The one with the orange bag? OK?" I said this while waving a quail egg box around in her face; she probably wanted to snatch it out of my hand and slap a bitch with it. But come on, jerks, if you'd just separate the trash I could stop pitchin' hissies.

All right, they may never learn, and honestly, I'm not too exercised about performing this chore myself. It doesn't take very long, it doesn't really gross me out, it's fine. I will do it.

Some new roommates have arrived in recent days; haven't told you about them; nothing exciting. The best part about them is the hilariously rabid rage they inspire in The Canuck with their endless blathering about diet-related inanities. "How much fat is in soy milk? Oh my god, gro-o-ss, this candy has as many calories as a piece of chocolate! I'm being soooo naughty today [referring to 100mL of instant hot cocoa]! I need to talk to the agency about my composite card: they said that my hips were 89cm and they're really 88cm! Elyse, how big are your hips?" This is the stuff of Canuckian homicidal fantasies: she spends each morning glowering over the rim of her bowl of Frosted Flakes as these girls stare at themselves in the mirror, preening, pinching the backs of their legs in order to regard themselves with slimmer-looking thighs.

What is the worst part about them, you ask? I'd neglected my trashwalla duties all weekend and was separating an unusually overflowing heap this morning. PET bottle into the recycling. Cookie box into the combustibles. Beer can into the recycling. Four reeking tied-up grocery bags full of liquid vomit? Um. Does that go into the food can?

Aww, shit! Bulimic betty in the house y'all! Throw your Russell's sign in the air!

The temptation to leave an obnoxious, emoticon- and exclamation mark-studded note is almost irresistible:
"IN THE FUTURE, PLEASE PURGE INTO THE TOILET!!!! :) THANKS!!! <3 THE MANAGEMENT :)"

Or I could provide a helpful label for each garbage can:
"COMBUSTIBLES/RECYCLABLES/WASTE/FOOD AND BULIMIA OFFAL"

But I think I'll do the the humane thing: determine the identity of the rogue puker and give her a low-toned "Hey, can you cool it with the bags of barf? It's really stinking up the terrace. Thanks, girl."

Tied-up bags full of barf. Tied-up bags full of barf! This is how we live.

good morning sugarland

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 01:00:35 GMT

Oh, the longer I go without posting anything the harder it is to find something worthy. Let Mr Jared ease my transition back to regular fireside chatting.

In other news, I talked to my beloved homeland agent last week: "Elyse, how would you feel about a month working in Shenzhen, China? I can get you a lucrative contract, but it's going to be hard work. Like, three jobs per day hard work. Maybe too hard work. But think about it."

I've worked in China many, many times before, but never for more than three days, and the work is always very strenuous. But I'm sticking to my It Ain't Coal Mining Scale of Modeling Work Difficulty, and I'm going to do it. Adventures will happen; stuff will get snacked upon. Lurid public art will be scoffed at. I'm going directly from Seoul to SZ (do not stop in Hong Kong, do not collect 500mL of Malted Vitasoy).

About a year ago, I remember reading that the People's Republic of China had blocked access to Livejournal.com from within the country. (Here is Wired's article about it.) Since then, I've had LJ comments to the effect of, "Ugh, it sucked when I was in China and couldn't access LJ," but also several like, "Hi from China!" Does anybody know the real deal? Is LJ blocked, and if so, can someone suggest a way that I can still blog when in 'Zhen?

Finally, O Korea, thou art home to the world's best socks.

my humps

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 12:26:04 GMT

Have I lately mentioned the phenomenon known as my game? Its epic scope, its savage beauty? The sheer number of top-quality gametes I'm daily swatting away like baseballs at a batting cage?

A gust of wind blew my skirt up as I exited the subway this afternoon. I'm pretty sure it was the microsecond of exposed olive-dinge undies that induced this dude to follow me from the subway to the drugstore to the coffee shop and sweep me off my feet:

My guess at the aborted Question 14: "Do you like one light stand?"

bosintang

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 06:06:27 GMT

Well, you double-dog-dared me...oh, no I won't. In an alternate universe, this entry would be studded with the MILLIONS of dog-related puns and allusions I've been mentally stockpiling over the past couple of days, but I won't do that to you. Let's get to the point: I ate it.

It took me forever to find the damn hole-in-the-wall restaurant, which was a good thing because it meant I was hungrier when I got in there. There it is on the right with the red and blue sign.

I didn't anticipate the level of commitment this stunt was gong to require: I was thinking I could go in and order the stuff, try it, eat it if it was good and bail out after three bites if it was gross. Idiotically, I went at 6:00pm, was the only customer in the restaurant and the proprietor was watching me like a hawk: I was going to have to finish my bosintang or leave in disgrace. Initiate psych-up sequence.

tragic_and_hip told me his bosintang experience was "delicious," so I was expecting the dog meat to be indistinguishable from beef or pork. It wasn't: this stuff was decidedly doggy, like, it had a sort of dogfur aroma and flavor to it. The soup also had a lot of green onions and those unidentifiable stringy greens that are also pictured in a bowl alongside. That big bowl of black pepper contained twice the quantity before the proprietor came up, dumped a huge mound of it into the bowl and stirred it up for me. This made the flavor of the meat seem much more penetrative; I felt like I was sweating the dog scent out of my pores.

Thar be dog meat in its chili, black pepper and oil dippin' sauce. It was tender but pretty heavily marbled with fat, a meaty feature repugnant to me under the best of circumstances. There were also dark rinds of dog fat in the soup; ugh, man, I mean, oh, man, it was not easy to put this in my mouth.

Now, bosintang is a medicinal food; one of the alleged health benefits is increased virility for men. Manager Sin warned me gravely, "Don't eat it, or you're going to be so horny you won't be able to sleep that night." I was just about to write that it didn't work, that horniness hovered around basal levels, but no! I now remember that the day I ate bosintang was the night I came home late, clubbed The Canuck over the head, dragged her by the hair out to a bar, and we returned with preliminary evidence that human boys may exist. Addled by hound flesh? Synchronously ovulating? Or might I be in possession of a soupçon of game after all?

saturday fun page

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 04:36:24 GMT

If you visit another country a lot, what are some things that you always bring back to your homeland? Stuff that's available in one place but not another, or much cheaper somewhere else? My ex-man used to request shipments of metholated Tempo brand tissues and packets of Super Hot Tonkotsu-flavored Nissin Ramen from Hong Kong: Asian marketeers though we were, we never saw that stuff on sale anywhere in the United States. I love to buy a big bottle of purple Palmolive Aromatherapy body wash upon landing in HK; nothing else anywhere is so simultaneously fragrant and cheap that you don't feel guilty about using five full squirts in a single shower.

When ex-roommate Kvetchka went back to Russia, she stuck a whole pineapple in her suitcase.

Melatonin is not over-the-counter in the United Kingdom. Also, one of my British bookers once described the cachet of all-white cigarettes: "In Britain, all cigarettes have yellow filters, so when I pull out an ultra-light Marlboro in London, people are like, 'Ooh, you've been to America!'"

My friend in Slovenia demanded that her American friends ship her some heavy-duty showercaps because she couldn't find any above grocery bag-grade.

In Mexico and Canada (Edit: Canadian commenters have informed me that this ain't true of Canadian coke anymore. Sorry.), Coca Cola is sweetened with sugarcane. In the United States, with corn syrup. My mom brings back a six-pack of the Mexican stuff every time she crosses the border.

Some previous resident of our models' apartment went to Thailand and brought several boxes of Thai bouillon cubes (Knorr brand) back to the apartment. I've been cooking carrots in the Tom Yum-flavored ones and wholeheartedly approve.

Edit: I just took my German male model pal to an import grocery store in Seoul, and he shrieked, "OH MY GOD! GERMAN BEER!", sprinting to the refrigerator and emerging with ten Heinekens clutched to his chest. Ha! Here in the land of Cass and Hite, I guess a Teuton just needs a Heine sometimes.

Second edit: OK, HEINEKEN IS DUTCH! Thanks! I didn't know the provenance of the damn beer; I just believed the German dude. And secondly, my German pal and the German bedroom invader are two different people.

korean annals of sojunetic medicine

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 15:16:08 GMT

I finished work early yesterday thanks to my cosmic skillz (client: "You are a posing genius!" haha), and, walking out of the studio into the sunlight of the Cheongdam 'hood, I turned to loathsome manager Hendrix and said, "You don't have to take me home; I'll just go on from here if that's cool. I want to walk around this neighborhood for a while. See you tomorrow?"

"No," quoth Hendrix. "Must back to apartment. Mandatory party tonight."

So we rolled in besnitted silence back to the agency, where I went into the office, collected my voucher for the job, and slunk out, but not before the agency owner screamed, "ELYSE! GO WAIT IN HOME! WE GOING SOMEWHERE."

UGH! Deodorant to buy, Cheongdam 'hood to explore, fabulous Mauritius wardrobe to shop for, bosintang to eat, I went back to my fucking apartment and clawed the curtains angrily as the sun went down and the last of the afternoon went to waste. I ate a dinner of fucking dry toast, a slice of sub-Velveeta petroleum processed cheese (the popular models' apartment sandwich that we optimistically call "grilled cheese") and an apple.

7:00pm, the agency called. "Please come to the office immediately." We went down, sat there for fifteen minutes (as The Canuck, who'd just come from a job and had her eyebrows coated in pink lipstick, wondered aloud, "Why are we just sitting down here? I could be taking off my makeup right now!"), then straggled off to our still-unrevealed destination, which turned out to be a soju bar (soju = Korean potato'n'chemicals liquor; bar = more like a restaurant here; food is served, though copious soju is served alongside).

We all sat down and busied ourselves pouring and distributing glasses of water.

The agency owner started screaming, "CANUCK! YOU SIT HERE. SIN! MOVE THERE! ELYSE! YOU SIT HERE!"

It became evident that he was shuffling us around into a model, manager, model, manager configuration. HIs opening remark, in so many words, was that the purpose of this surprise mandatory enforced-seating journey to a bar was to foster feelings of love and friendship between models and managers. Then all the managers began chatting across us in Korean as the models sat in silence.

"ELYSE! WHY YOU NO DRINK!"

Some tempura arrived; I had a crab stick; the "grilled cheese sandwich" and apple in my stummy were like, "Go away! No room!"

I've had a cold; baroque swags of pollution-laden mucus festooned the ole larynx. After yapping away all day at my job, my voice was a hoarse whisper.

"ELYSE! WHY YOU NO DRINK!"

I couldn't even scream back.

OK, let's move this story along. I left. Went home. It was already 9:00pm and any independent plans I might have had were fucked. Roommates straggled in one by one: "Oh, my head hurt!" "Not much, we just sat there the rest of the time, not really talking. But I tried kimchi and didn't hate it!" The last roommate to arrive had actually lasted beyond the bar and made it to the afterparty at a karaoke parlor. "It was fine," said she.

1:00am, my roommate and I were enjoying our nightly fake Pilates, where we get out her Pilates mat and Pilates ring thing and pose while we stare at ourselves in the mirror, when we heard the beeping of the door entry code being punched in. We froze; whoever was punching did it wrong and failed to gain entry. Another fumbling attempt. Wrong again.

A knock.

"Who is it?"

"Hendrix."

"What do you want?"

Initiate door entry code punch sequence again. Roomie and I scrambled for our respective bedrooms, slamming our doors just as the code was punched in correctly and Hendrix entered the living room. I assume that my Pilates partner was pressing her ear up to her door and hearing the same crashings and stompings that I was, then silence.

I went out to assess the situation, then reported back in a whisper at the other door.
"Girl, Hendrix is passed out in the living room."
"EW!"
"Well, good night."
"'Night."

Oh yeah, then I took a picture of course.

The final madness: our apartment is a communal area with three bedrooms and a bathroom branching off of it, all in a line. Hendrix must've gotten up for a pee: I heard him reeling around and I sat up cross-legged in bed. Did I mention I've feng shui'd my bed, ditching the box spring in favor of a pallet of quilts on the floor? Damn, been sleeping so much better. Anyway, to the sozzled Hendrix, the four parallel closed doors must have looked like a deranged version of The Price Is Right, and Hendrix chose wrong. Behind Door #1 was a malign, skinny little gremlin crouched in the middle of the floor on a pile of blankets, hissing, "Whatttt the fuxxxxx, Hendrixxxxx? Get out! Get out! Ssssss!"

Three incredibly slurred nonsense syllables later, he was out.

Hope he had nightmares about me.

bulletin

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 08:09:55 GMT

PHOTOGRAPHER FOR SHOOT IN MAURITIUS = THE HOT PHOTOGRAPHER.

MORE LATER.

HAVE A NICE DAY!

vitamin k

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 13:05:53 GMT

I think I'm going to take this primary colors idea and run with it.

Hey, toilet seat lid? I don't think those were starfish.

Hope I don't get the hose again!

movie time and boast post

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 15:36:26 GMT

The song is "Can't Change My Style" by the Drags. Hope you like it!

"Seoul Style."

PS Last time it was movie time, somebody left a comment like, "I thought this was just some random band video and wasn't going to watch it." Yeah, I never watch random band videos on blogs either. But this here movie, I made it, and it's only 1:30 long so it's not much of a time investment.

PPS I struck a deal with the devil: for every two months I spend sleeping on a box spring, I will receive one job shooting on location in Mauritius. Awesome! Unless somebody throws acid in my face or my tits fall off, I'm going at the beginning of May.

PPPS One last little thing before I hit the box spring. I had a fab banchan this evening: chilled shredded wet seaweed. Everyone at the table went nuts for this apparently rare presence on the banchan stage and we had a synchronized brontosaurus moment as we all took our first bite then sucked the dripping tail of plant matter into our maws. Pond pose.

united 955

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 05:38:09 GMT

The way he might spin it in his blog, if he had one, which he doesn't, because he isn't cool enough: "Ach, so this Canuck and I decided to go haff lunch, and ve tried to invited her roommate, but all she did vas screaming on me vhen I am going into her room. Vat a bitch!"

The way it happened: My roomie returned to Minnesota this morning. Her disgustipating, effeminate, ultraskinny German male model boyfriend lurched out of her bunk bed, bade her goodbye, and IMMEDIATELY TOOK UP WITH THE CANUCK WITHOUT EVER VACATING OUR APARTMENT. They watched movies and chatted all morning as I pressed my ear up to my door like, "Ashley's gone. Why the hell has this ultraskinny disgustipating male model idiot not left yet? Oh my god, is he now hanging out with The Canuck? Oh my god! He is now hanging out with The Canuck!"

O Canada, I know that this aside doesn't fit in with this entry at all, but can I please just insert that I fricking love Canadians? You guys have this national attitude that is so excellently agreeable; all the Canuckian model roommates I have known have been rock-solid girlfriend material. Triple thumbs up, True North. Keep on doing what you're doing.

So. Anyway. I was slumped over in bed, scrolling down DListed (which has been a positive work of art this week, don't you agree?), when this outrageous German motherfucker opened the door of my room and walked in, presumably to invite me out to wherever he and The Canuck were going. "Out!" I shrieked. He advanced. "GET! OUT!" The message penetrated his Teutonic skull and he mumbled, "Oh, sorry," and retreated. Ha-a-a-a-a-a-te. I HATE the feeling of no privacy. Oh, and have I mentioned this? Models' apartments' beds are always uncomfortable, so I didn't even bother to investigate the discomfort of this particular one until two nights ago. A box spring! A box spring! I don't have a mattress, I've been sleeping on sheets on top of a bare-ass box spring! Somehow this struck me as so ridiculously pathetic that it is undeniably hilarious: sleeping on a box spring with no one to love me! Lying down on a dirty motherfucking BOX SPRING every night! Ha! You think you're lame? Just think about this every time you're feeling low: box spring, Dude. Box spring.

Update: I talked to The Canuck. According to her, this German fool stormed my citadel amidst her protestations that "Elyse is going to fucking KILL you if you go in there!" According to her, he wasn't coming in to invite me out to lunch; he wanted to borrow something from my encyclopedic collection of cables/cords/connectors so he could DJ some of his dogshit German techno for the (non)amusement of the crowd. So there's that mystery solved. My diagnosis? BAH!

In other news, The Canuck and I also reviewed the details about the presence of the German fool in our apartment inthefirstplace. I euphemized it thus: "I'm really sorry that I was so rude to your friend, but man, Canuck, that guy was making me uncomfortable." Replied she, "God! I didn't want him over here, I was glad you kicked him out, thank you, and fuck me for being incapable of being mean to people!" So my diagnosis of "BAH!" stands, now enhanced and fortified with Canadian approval.

And finally, this is for all y'all who don't look twice unless there's a picture. From Fukuoka, Japan, home of the godawful ugliest public art ever. Ever. Ever! Hey, lady, the bird dick you're getting is probably far from satisfactory: there is no such thing as bird dick! Hump away; cloaca wilt thou get, and nothing more.

a manila envelope with one last little robin's egg in it

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 10:09:17 GMT

Ultra-addled w/ Korean spring fever post! Regard my horny all-red ensemble.

this entry sux

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 16:00:54 GMT

Ew, I haven't felt writey in several days. Been grinding (you know what I keep in the lining). Models who say, "It's just a job"? Yeah, some weeks, it is. I get to the salt mines in the morning, regard the number of outfits I will have to wear that day, then become a transparent eyeball as I endure hair/makeup and wait for time to pass until the job is over. Still taking great pleasure in sullying sample designer clothes though:

I got horseshit on the Ferragamo.

And this shit:

On the Louis Vuitton.

Whoops! Guess those garments won't be on the rack at the next sample sale.

Notice those hands holding up the light fixture that would ordinarily be sitting on the ground? That photographer had a new (to me) technique whereby his two minions would hold up the lights and run around pointing them at my ever-motile ladypose instead of me having to aim my ladypose at a stationary lighting apparatus. Ah, freedom! I could turn right or left as I wished! Chin up or down according to my capricious pleasure! Two hapless photo assistants doing all the work as I simply turned my fat head hither and thither. Luxury.

[Beloved manager Sin obediently dug my camera out of my handbag and took both of the above pictures of me on set. Thank you, Sin.]

Ugh, my roommate The Canuck, who had been sitting with me at the kitchen table, typing away, has just sloped off to bed with her eyelashes still crusted with white mascara. Now my L'Oreal Ellnett-lacquered hair and I are slumped over alone, feeling guilty that we're not in bed ourselves. Tired! I'll leave you with a tidbit from my visa run to Japan earlier this week.

whole lotte love

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 18:30:07 GMT

Oh, this week had a couple of grueling days in it. The agency's most loathsome manager, to whom you have been introduced, but now he's going to be called Hendrix because I'm now eschewing real names in favor of 100% pseudonymity, accompanied me to the salt mines two long, cold, ladyposing-outside-in-the-freezing rain-in-summer-dresses kind of days in a row (did I say that spring had sprung? I retract that. Spring has pissed down freezing drizzle and Arctic winds). Loathsomely, at 7:00am, Hendrix commenced to enhance his makeup-artist flirtation by leaning across the makeup table toward her. Loathsomely, he commenced to fail to cease proceeding with his deep-dig earwax plumbing, overtly sprinkling the pay dirt over the makeup brushes.

"Hendrix! Fuck! Those brushes are about to touch my face!"

Considerately, he shuffled a few feet to the left and resumed burrowing and sprinkling, burrowing and sprinkling, this time due north of my gaping handbag.

It went downhill from there. I held a summit. I passed a resolution.

Resolution on Public Pickin'

Whereas you may examine dried, ingrown, pustulent, or scabby curiosities,

Whereas you may probe,

Whereas you may scratch,

Elyse Sewell,

Acting as an authority on the subject of general fucking ackrite,

1.) Resolves that nothing shall be digg'd out and THEN examined, and
2.) Declares that you may not pick and flick, and
3.) Declares that you may not scratch and roll.

Amendment 1: Shall gnawing it off be permitted? Sometimes you just have to; however, those nations which would take advantage of this clause by gnawing it off and then spitting it out all plosively shall be sanctioned.

And in other news, a new devilry has descended upon the models' apartment. Old roomie Becky was abruptly sent back to 'Bek (wasn't getting jobs; good riddance to bad rayon cargo pants, and besides she left a half bottle of soju and some Uzbek chocolates in the fridge. Guzzled, thanks). Within hours of her departure, a new suitcase had appeared and fresh meat was ensconced in her bunk bed. From the land of Ordem e Progresso to Jo'Burg to Hong Kong to here; this new girl must've been really tired and jet-lagged when she said and did the following Weird Things, so I'll reserve judgement and the application of a hateful pseudonym. For now!
Weird thing #1 (last night): I haven't seen her yet, though I know she's been sleeping in her room. I'm doing dishes at the sink and she comes up behind me with the attitude of a supplicant. Mewls, "Water!" This is her first word to me. Um, drink it out of the tap or go downstairs: there's a convenience store ON THE GROUND FLOOR.
Weird thing #2 (last night): English skills improve significantly when she asks, "Can I borrow your computer?" "Yes, but don't download anything." "Sorry, my English, I...?" (She shrugs).
Weird thing #3 (this morning): She reels out of her room, after, judging from the snores, a mighty nights' sleep, and declares pathetically, "I'm hungry!" I already have one foot out the door for my Saturday morning walkabout, so I cast a triumphant glance at The (trapped!) Canuck and leap out of the apartment. The Canuck shepherds her to the supermarket and later describes the experience as "Fine," but I notice that a hilariously huge styrofoam tray, US$15 worth to be exact, of chopped beef pieces has appeared in the fridge. Churrasca!

Anyway, enough of the shit talking. I'm actually in high spirits, had an excellent day, and I'm typing alongside the new girl (on The Canuck's graciously lent computer) in an amicable silence. Maybe it will be fine. Now pics.

Near my hovel, Friday night. borninjeans would call this the "Korean 'DRINK TIL YOU DIE!' method." I came back thirty minutes later and he was busily contributing to a puddle of vomit between his shoes; I elected not to make a vid and regret it.

At the Incheon airport. I've had many layovers at this airport and always bitch about it being the most depressing airport ever: if you want to buy something, you can only pay with won- having to exchange any of the world's merrier banknotes for the hideous won notes is punishment enough without Incheon's dark terminal and terminally dark-tempered employees. Little did I know that all you have to do is cross a skybridge and this magical, plant-filled relaxation lounge awaits.

My lunch today was only kinda good: a bean sprout pancake.

With onion soy sauce. I ordered one of the pancakes off the stack, and the lady at the stall cut it up and put the pieces on a hot griddle to crisp up. She started handing me pieces as soon as the first few were warm; I ate them, then she handed me more. The last pieces, completely crispened, would have been the best except that I was already full from eating the first mushy pieces. I took the crisp ones home in a bag but they got soggy. Woe!

The market I ate in ruled though. I was not expecting this guy to look up and catch me.

Look, Koreans, you may think that the Lotteria version of pat bing su is a cheap fast-foodified simulacrum, but god, after my afternoon of walking around in the rain, it was absolutely transcendent to have a Froot Loop, some vanilla soft serve, some sweet red bean paste, a cube of nata de coco, a canned mandarin orange segment, a Rice Krispie, and some shaved ice all in one bite.

Jacko nose. Also note that the light reflected from the metallic silver collar near my jaw gives me the appearance of a fetchingly swollen jowl.

one of each

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 10:39:41 GMT

US$.40 apiece to have these cobwebby scanjobs done in my local PC bang? Ripoff!

'Tis only fashion: feel free to hate or love as you wish in the comments section.

This next one isn't the best picture out of the six or eight in the magazine; I chose it because remember this?

third girl

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 11:52:09 GMT

Spring sprung suddenly on Korea; sap rising, spirits high, weltschmerz practically nonexistent. I've been tripping through the streets scantily clad, perpetrating obnoxious sillinesses like sniffing at my arm appreciating the way the scent of my new Korean rosemary soap lingered on my pelt. Mm, spring fever.

I had this lush lunch:

At this cool place:

And I found a sweet potato-flavored snack cake that I liked the first time I came to Seoul in 2005. Unfortunately, my #1 favorite snack from that trip, the soft tomato-flavored popsicle, seems to have been deep-sixed.

Kvetchka has returned to deepest Siberia, leaving behind only the bag of millet that she would make for breakfast, hot, with milk and sugar. She was replaced immediately with Becky. She's from Tashkent, but in reply to my thrilling conversational gambit, "So you are Uzbek?" she shrieked, possibly offended, "No! I am Russian and Tartar!" Hm, OK. I haven't a clue about which races of Mother Russia don't want to be mistaken for which. Incidentally, Kvetchka's final treachery was to break this posted rule, leaving me with a tolet stool full of soil into which I DROPPED MY STICK DEODORANT. This is no small matter; a tube of Secret is a treasure to hoard here on the continent of the rolling-ball kind.

And finally, this isn't a club banger, just a quick video of my eerily quiet ride on the train Saturday afternoon.

boom bip

Sun, 23 Mar 2008 06:24:55 GMT

Oh, dicksticks! I got reprimanded for bloggin'. As you may have guessed from my annoyingly cryptic last entry, my vee to the eye to the ess to the eh type of stuff is not quite barely legal at the moment. The Gentleman of a Certain Fabulousness told me to take down all the text in my LJ; if I "want to make a site," I am permitted only to post pictures. Uh, OK. I will flout this recommendation. My plan is to leave the locked Seoul entries locked for now, pave over them with a few new, nonincriminating ones, then unlock them again when certain stamps get stamped in a certain miniature blue book later on this week. Ugh, sorry about the lockdown. I just want to post whatever I want whenever I want, all over the internet, using my real name, and to talk shit about half the people I know using their real names, and not have any undesirables discover it, ever, and I also want my laundry to fold itself. Is that so unreasonable?

In other news, it's a rainy afternoon here. According to borninjeans, Korean acid rain will make your hair fall out (that's why true Seoulsiders are never caught without umbrellas). My roommate The Canuck got me an Easter gift of M&M's, and I have a fresh book to read. All signs point toward a return to bed.

(ETA: Confidental to Koreans: That's The Canuck on the cover of the new Elle Girl.)

la migra

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 11:25:54 GMT

Oh no! Just got asked to censor blog. So, so damn tired right now; slapdash solution was to lock most of my entries from Seoul until I figure out what to do. Suck!

ETA: I think that the solution will be to temporarily remove some bits of text, unlock the entries, then repost them in full when the Man gets off my back, man. I'll do the censoring this weekend. Pressing issue right now: huge patches of hair extension glue on scalp and nary a drop of mixed hexanes in the cupboard. Got a long night of pickin' ahead.

movie time

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 12:46:23 GMT

The song is "The Little Black Egg" by the Nightcrawlers. Hope you like it.

"Seoul Food"