Categories
Meta

Reaching 2007

The momentous landmark I reached last weekend was that I finally finished 2006, when it comes to fixing old posts — and I managed to do a big dent in 2007 this weekend, getting through January-May.

The reason it takes so long is that I’m pretty much going in every single post, either to fix the image (or images), to fix the blockquote tag (I used to quote things a lot in posts), or to add a little update note.

For the images, through Wayback Machine I manage to find the last 20 posts or so for each month (WM would save two page for each month’s archives). It’s a bit weird because for other years, there were quite a few times a month that WM would save the site, so I could find a lot more posts, but for some reason during 2006-2007, which is possibly the site’s most active period, it stopped doing that. And then after that, it’s a mix of still finding images because they were hosted on Flickr, or through a folder I have with images that were not taken from other sites. What a fucking process.

Hoping to give a big push to get through the rest of 2007 and then 2008, and after that it should take less time as the frequency of posts reduces (in 2006-2008 I’m looking at an average of 100 posts a month).

Categories
Anime

More on the The Great Passage

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I already wrote a few thoughts on the anime adaptation of The Great Passage, based on having watched only the first episode. There are three episodes out now, and my interest and love for this series has done nothing but grow. I especially enjoy discovering all of the work and process that goes behind the creation of a dictionary — something I had never really considered before. But I find it fascinating, and the romantic aspect of the series — I’m assuming something is going to develop between the main character and the niece of his landlady — is not bad either. I’m definitely in for the full season.

Categories
Art

Kento Iida

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Here’s a nice big Cartoon Brew post showing off the beautiful illustrative work of Kento Iida. La-la-love his style, and there’s more to see on his Tumblr and Instagram account.

Categories
Cafes Photography

The Kissaten of Yanesen

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Here’s a nice little piece with lots of photos from the Japan Times that takes a look at some of the old kissaten (coffeeshops) that survive in Tokyo, here focusing on the area of the city called Yanesen (a combination of Yanaka, Nezu, and Sendagi).

Categories
Games

Shiny Shoe’s Mark Cooke

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I first met Mark Cooke when he was living in Tokyo, working at Grasshopper Manufacture. He now runs his own studio in San Francisco called Shiny Shoe — the name coming from a particular pair of sneakers he used to have, that I remember him wearing when he presented at a PechaKucha Night in Tokyo — and you can hear more about his trajectory and what he’s up to these days in this interview podcast produced by Autodesk.

Categories
Books Fashion

Interview with Takeyoshi Hayashida

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David continues to add to his “Ametora Extended” collection of articles that support Ametora, this time sharing an interview he conducted while researching the book, with Van’s Takeyoshi Hayashida.

Categories
Design

Good Design Award 2016

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It’s always fun to take a look at the winners of the annual Good Design Award — and for me, when I was writing my “On Design” column, it would give me ideas on products to cover that I had somehow missed throughout the year. The 2016 lineup was recently announced, and the Grand Award went to what you see pictured here, the AuthaGraph World Map — read more about the map in this Spoon & Tamago post. Take a look at the rest of the winners here.

Categories
Architecture Art Design Events Photography

PKN at TDW 2016

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I’m sure we’ll soon get a full album of photos, but here’s the big traditional crowd shot that was taken at last week’s annual Tokyo Design Week edition of PechaKucha Night. Since leaving Tokyo, it’s always bittersweet for me to see these, as our TDW event was always one of the big highlights of the year, and I have quite a few memories of dealing with all of the extra work that goes into producing an event like this — compared to the monthly events at SuperDeluxe that are a cakewalk in comparison — as well as being in the back and running the slides on a laptop, with presenters coming in last minute to request changes or to fix something. Good times.

Categories
Art

Baby Halloween Frappuccino

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Just in time for Halloween — and yes, in certain parts of Tokyo, parents do organize trick-or-treat outings in some neighborhoods — a fun little illustration by Tokyo-based illustrator Fern Choonet. Found via Canvas.

Categories
Photography

Kimono + Bucket

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I quite like this photo by Tokyo-based photographer Marco Tjokrosantoso. Found via Canvas.