I’ll have a proper post about tonight’s PauseTalk Vol. 53 a bit later — I must say, it was a great one — but in the meantime here’s a fun photo taken by Tom Coombs of the staff at Cafe Pause while a few of us were taking Tequila shots in honor of this being the last PauseTalk for regular attendee Josh McKible.
Update: And here’s what was happening on the other side.
Just a reminder that PauseTalk Vol. 53 happens tonight (September 5) at Cafe Pause, from 20:00. It’s been a couple of months since the last one, so quite looking forward to it. Come on down for a good chat on all things art/culture.
After another delay because of the server migration, a new episode of the Codex (38) is finally up and ready for download. As I explain in the show notes, I’m also using a new setup, which explains the occasional glitches.
I’ve been continuing my Ikebukuro West Gate Park beer drinking outings throughout the summer, and now it has spread into fall — our first combini run even saw us grabbing our first fall beers, which I believe were out that day (September 1). Meeting up with two friends (Cormac and Josh) who are as much into comics as I am, that was the excuse to get together — hence me describing it as the inaugural “Comibukuro” gathering — and it was fun sharing opinions on recent books, and talking about the books that affected us throughout our lives. After a few beers outside — with a scenery of kids taking dives into the park’s fountain — we continued on to the nearby Dubliner’s pub for a few hearty stouts. When that place closed we moved on to the Hub (pictured above).
We were constantly worried about the threat of the oncoming typhoon, and although it was fine for most of the night, I finally got caught in a sudden downpour as I was biking back home, getting rather drenched. Oh well.
There was a time when I would always post a photo here after I got a haircut. I’ve long stopped doing that — it did feel rather silly — and so here’s a pic of me just before the scissors hit the hair. I didn’t get anything drastic, just a “refresh” — I have a two-block-like cut, so the sides definitely needed to be shaved down again. And yes, I always bring my iPad with me, to read magazines and comics — I do chat a bit with the hair stylist, who I’ve been using exclusively (I always make an appointment with him) for years now. I don’t go to a pricey place or anything though, it’s just the Di Moda Japan chain, and the cut itself is usually around 3500 yen.
Just over a week ago I attended the launch party for thesecond issue of TOO MUCH magazine, held at the United Bamboo store (in the building’s event space) in Daikanyama. TOO MUCH is of course the follow-up to OK FRED magazine, and is still helmed by the editorial duo of Yoshi Tsujimura and Audrey Fondecave (my fellow Radio OK Fred podcasters). The party doubled as an exhibition based on a feature written by another good friend, Ian Lynam, of which you can see more here. You can buy a 2-issue subscription to TOO MUCH (it’s published twice-annually) here.
After the reception, we walked down towards Nakameguro to get some drinks at Just Another Space, which is a rather funky spot — and hey, there’s ping-pong table there too.
Also, if you’re curious as to the effect I’m putting on these photos (which I also did for the haircut post), I’m using a series of actions in Photoshop that replicate the filters found in Instagram — in each case, I’ve applied “Hefe,” followed by “Brannan.” You can download them here(and thank you Nick Chester for the tip on this).
Just before I went to the TOO MUCH magazine launch party, I stopped by my friend Spikey’s new studio in Daikanyama. Spikey (or Shin Takahashi) worked at Klein Dytham architecture for 7 years, and just a few months ago left the company to start his own thing, in the guises ofSpecial Normal. He’s an amazing interior designer, and I got to hear about some upcoming projects which all sounded fantastic. Loved his studio space as well, which is what you’re seeing in this post.
Decided to do a quick follow-up to yesterday’s episode of the Codex, and so here it is.
Apologies for the site’s downtime — the server migration had a few hiccups involved moving over my SQL databases, and it took a few days to resolve everything. But it looks like it’s all good now, and all of my sites seem to be back up and running. Expect regular blogging to resume all over, and I’ll record a new episode of the Codex in the next day or two. I’ve also been thinking of doing a fun re-branding of this site — it’s been a while since I’ve made any major changes — and have already enlisted the help of a friend for one part of it. More on this soon.
Following a summer break, PauseTalk is back this coming Monday (September 5) at Cafe Pause for a 53rd edition. The official session will start at 20:00, as always, but feel free to come earlier — I usually get there around 19:30 or so. I will be creating a Facebook event page — here is the PauseTalk page on Facebook — but because the notifications don’t seem to work as well with fan pages as they did with groups, I’ll also be creating a newsletter, for those of you who want to make sure they get the reminders each month.