ELECTRIC ANT ZINE BLOG

This isn't typical of the posts I usually put up on the EAZB, but it's been an atypical week... so please bear with me! Over the last week I've been traveling to visit Alice, and also fighting off a head cold. A few days ago, some terrible news trickled out over Twitter & email: Korean supermodel Daul Kim took her own life in her Paris apartment. I heard the awful news Friday morning via email from my buddy Dan, living in Tokyo.

Some of you already know all this, and also some of you probably never heard of Daul Kim before. But as with the few other deaths I've posted about here & there on Same Hat, the untimely passing of Daul Kim hit me hard, in a strangely personal way. I can't exactly remember how I first heard of Daul (Dan, maybe it was you sharing a post on Reader?), but since then our friends and I have been following her awesome, revealing, and fascinating blog I LIKE TO FORK MYSELF closely. Daul's blog has consistently been one of my favorite stops on the internet, a mix of her candid imac photos, fave trance remix clips, her youthful and passionate/goofy poetry/stream-of-consciousness journal entries, the musings of a humane and odd girl. The blog will (hopefully) remain up for a while as an artifact and snapshot of the fascinating, surreal, and conflicted life that Daul was living for the past few years.

Daul was only 20 years old when she took her own life. I've found myself thinking a lot the past few days about it; How her life was this confusing and alien mishmash of extreme privilege and jetsetting. Daul went to a school with other rich & international adolescents, and became famous for her beauty. In her own words, she was "treated like a princess".

And yet, she seemed oddly similar to a lot of my friends. Daul had written a photography/travel book about Seoul, she created short, haunting little videos on YouTube, read Russian literature & Japanese novels, did collaborations with her friends on Daily Projects & the Korean street fashion blog Your Boyhood, and she was a talented and weirdo painter of surreal figures and scenes. From her posts and her Facebook profile, it was always clear Daul was into the same milieu of artists, cartoonists, and directors as the EAZB crew: Shinya Tsukamoto, Wong Kar-Wai, Klaus Kinski, Kyle MacLachlan, etc. I don't usually muse so hard on celebrity passings, but she seemed like someone we maybe knew (or, at least, someone we'd like to hang out with).

I never met Daul in person, but I did have the pleasure of corresponding with her back & forth a few times last year over Facebook & email. We talked a bit about zines & comics, and I sent a package of postcards and zines to her in Korea last winter. Daul was supremely generous and nice to me, and told me she really liked my two zines, My Seat is Your Behind and Electric Ant #1. I was geeked, obviously, and appreciated her taking the time to indulge my nerdy messages.

I don't really have anything insightful to say, but I wanted to post something in tribute here. I know Daul only as far as she showed herself online and her public modeling persona. She seemed to have an envious, incredible life with the world and creative projects at her fingertips. And still, anyone who read posts by daulmonster knew she was prone to depression, ill-prepared to deal with some parts of "real life" and maybe too intellectually curious for the world she was a part of. I dunno.

The thought of taking your own life, as a young person and as an atheist, confuses me, and facing the reality of it in both friends and famous folks is terrifying. More simply, I'm just fucking frustrated that we've lost another radical person to suicide, too young and with so much more cool shit undoubtedly ahead of them. Thoughts go out to her friends and family. She is already very missed.

[For a really nice tribute to Daul Kim, please see these video diaries and retrospective via NYMag.]

PS: I wrote this post up on the plane home from St. Louis, and since went to ILIKETOFORKMYSELF looking for a few photos to add. I came across this post from June 2009, which sorta sums up a lot of the depth, privilege, childishness, and awesomeness of Daul Kim. I remember reading it the day she originally posted it on her blog:

**************

say hi ....to happiness!!!
to be honest, living in paris was fun
but also very very depressing

i was used to getting anything i want at anytime
since i was young

i used to get very upset or agressive or simply
did not understand WHY sometimes i cant get what i want

and now i realised, things dont work like that

in europe... almost more than 50% of chance
it wont work out like you want, and people will be retarded about things
and if you stress about it
only you will suffer

i knew the theory always but then its hard to accept it,
and i told myself, before im 25, i will force myself to suffer abit in abroad
to develop myself, cos i feel like when i get back home ppl treat me like a princess
and i keep getting super spoiled....n alot of weird ppl so...i become caught up

its better in korea i can focus on the emotional complexity of life
its abit entertaining to deal with psycho people ...
... it kills time.

its still a constant battle between my old friends telling me
"Uve become so tough poor you! means u suffered"
"its so un nessasory you learn these things you are gonna come back anyway"

but im sure there is a way to become strong without being tough...

ive been very happy recently. and im learning how to not be tough but strong.

i lived a fast life and i wanted to end it as quick as possible
and now days i feel like... everyday is kind of precious to me