Monday, September 28, 2026
Sunday, September 27, 2026
Bangtan Hermana Notes: ARMY Glow Up: What We Make While We Wait
In 2022, while BTS began their military chapter, I made a promise to myself through the ARMY Glow Up campaign: if I was going to wait, I would not simply wait. I would learn something, make something, nurture a skill, and keep my creative fire alive.
That was how this cyanotype began with Indigo, with Namjoon’s Wild Flower, and with my own curiosity about turning light, plants, and chemistry into an image. The first print experimental. Then came a digital reproduction with the help of Sin So. I then framed a version of it and eventually I was able to write a poem for it: “a flower does not bloom for beauty alone / it is for bearing fruit / a truth laden with thorns.” I was simply making, learning, and playing through a season of waiting, loss, grief and holding on. I didn’t know where else the work would go.
And now, look. 
@atta_joy_ca an ARMY in San Francisco noticed my cyanotype prints and has shared the newest reproduction of this particular print, Wild Flower. And it was reprinted with my permission, as part of the gift bags prepared for the press preview of RM’s exhibition at the San Francisco Musuem of Modern Art next month. From a little cyanotype experiment in the Philippines to San Francisco. Wow. This is what ARMY Glow Up means to me. We don’t just wait for our artists to return. We use the waiting to become more capable of making the things we dream of making.
BTS were growing in their own chapter. So was I. So were we.
This one found its way to San Francisco. And at RM’s curated art exhibit at SFMOMA, no less. Who knows where the next one will go? 
Saturday, September 26, 2026
Friday, September 25, 2026
Thursday, September 24, 2026
Wednesday, September 23, 2026
Monday, September 21, 2026
Light House Diary Entry #92: On the 54th Anniversary of Martial Law and the Role of Libraries
One of our teachers borrowed “The Conjugal Dictatorship” from our library a few months back and I remembered He noticed that we have two copies. One is considerably thicker than the other. I explained that the thicker one is the revised and annotated edition, with annotations, references, and updates added decades after the original publication. It reminded me that sometimes, the most interesting thing about a book is not simply what it tells us, but how later readers and scholars continue the conversation around it.
An annotation does not erase an author’s perspective, bias, or authorial intent. Instead, it gives the reader another layer through which to examine the original text.
We can ask:
What was written?
Who wrote it?
When and why was it written?
What evidence was available then? What has since been added, clarified, challenged, or contextualized?
In this sense, having two editions side by side becomes an exercise in historical literacy: we learn to read not just the text, but also the history surrounding the text.
This is one of the most important things libraries can offer, especially when we encounter difficult or contested histories. We don’t have to tell readers what to think. We can give them the books, the context, the questions, and the space to think critically for themselves. History deserves readers who can look beyond a single narrative and not by pretending that bias can be completely removed, but by learning to recognize perspectives, examine evidence, encounter other sources, and keep asking questions.
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