2024
Popped down to Kobe Chinatown for some snacks ๐ฅฎ๐ฅ before heading over to Merikan Park to see the Port Tower ๐ผ and discovered an Aloha dance festival! And me in my Hawaiian shirt! ๐บ๐ #otp ๐ ๐ซฐ
Visited โฐ๏ธ Mount Maya today ๐ and took a few photos: cable car timelapses, cityscapes, mountain-top temples, and snakes ๐
Started Justice by Means of Democracy by Danielle Allen ๐
AMAZE ๐๐ ๐งโโ๏ธ๐งโโ๏ธ๐๐ #lotr
Since I was travelling last time, this edition of my personal newsletter is a little full. Covers all the hits from the last two months: chopping up tuna in a back alley, baby sushi, and existential ennui. ๐ท
Kaohsiung and Tainan, featuring Fo Guang Shan
Thursday, May 30, 2024
This post is part of a series. See the introduction here โ (see the whole album in full screen on Flickr here) Kaohsiung is a port city in southern Taiwan, developed by the Japanese as an important industrial hub. We hired a tour guide who carted us around to different locations including the port area, the old British consulate, the art walk, and to one of the most intensely nerdy coffee shops I have ever seen (run by what I am pretty sure are devotees of the Falun Gong new religious movement , check out the art to see what I mean).
Taiwan trip report - Introduction
Thursday, May 30, 2024
Taiwan has been on the bucketlist for a while. In the year 2000 I was an exchange student in Kyoto learning Taiwanese from a fellow exchange student who was so excited for elections that he flew back to Taiwan to vote. That was only the second presidential election since the military dictatorship (which ruled from 1949) had transitioned to democratic elections in the nineties. In 2000 things were very exciting since it was the first time an opposition party won the presidency.
๐ฆโโฌโฌ Mirlo is a collectively owned music service experimenting with novel governance concepts like โexit to communityโ to make sure power resides with the musicians and listeners. Only a couple days left and they are SO CLOSE to their goal! SUPPORT!
Started Prophet Song by Paul Lynch ๐
Current status: Prom dress shopping with my daughter. ๐๐๏ธ
๐ง๐ป: We HAVE to go together. You are supposed to whine and complain about the time and prices and generally be awkward and embarrassed and old. Itโs traditional! ๐
Finished The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin ๐ in just over 24 hours. Could not put it down.
Nostalgia riddim! Bluku bluku!
Started reading: The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin ๐
Loved, loved, loved, โTomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrowโ
Walking down a side alley today we saw these chefs outside a sushi joint with this 100 kilo tuna. They were selling ยฅ150 beers and doing a “breakdown” demonstration. So we stuck around and watched. Here are the highlights!
Current status: in a back alley in Osaka where they are about to clean a 100kilo tuna in front of a small crowd
#Osaka #Japan
(love being able to correct my spelling errors in Micro.blog and Mastodon after posting… hate having to give up or repost on Bluesky ๐ญ)
Philosophers ranked by their punk credentials: I would put the Buddha a bit higher on the scale since his critique of the caste system, and the workaround he created for people to escape it, was revolutionary ๐ชทโ๐ง๐จโ๐ค
#punk #philosophy #buddhism
Annual medical checkup day. Just ran the gauntlet at the local health office ๐ฅ๐ฉบ. Really wish we did this in Canada, it is a great marker. (Also, amazed at how much I have shrunk in the past couple of years! ๐)
Finished Before They Are Hanged by Joe Abercrombie ๐
Can’t stop this series! But don’t want it to end, so going to take a break before I read the final volume.
This was absolutely delightful ncase.me/crowds/
Ikijima’s population has dropped by 140 and is just below 24K now. There are only 2727 children on the island.
#ikijima #ๅฃฑๅฒๅณถ
It’s my birthday. So I watched End of Evangelion and started reading Non-things by Byung-Chul Han ๐
Yeah, middle age is a breeze ๐ฌ
Elaborate handmade birthday card presented to me at dinner ๐
Daughter 1: I wrote it all in Old English. ๐
Daughter 2: Why? So he could understand it? ๐
๐ฅ ๐ฅ ๐ฅ ๐
My last day as a 45 year old had a spectacular sunset. My 12 year old took this photo ๐ธ ๐ ๐
View from the Cybozu Osaka office. We are here and ready for our workshop tonight
Sitting in a crowded Umeda cafรฉ reviewing my slides for tonight’s workshop on The Culture Map. If you are free this evening, why not come down to the awesome Cybozu office and hang out with us:
Myaku Myaku train in the early evening ๐ธ ๐ ๐ฆ
#Osaka #ๅคง้ช
It could be better for everybody โ a review of Limitarianism in just 335 words
Wednesday, May 15, 2024
๐ Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth by Ingrid Robeyns is an ethical framework advocating for limiting excess wealth and redistributing to the benefit of wider society. The book builds its case by historically analyzing the rise of inequality over the past 50 years through global neoliberal policy; the social problems that inequality cause or exacerbate; how taking a Limitarian stance could improve things for everyone including the wealthy; and what needs to be done to get there.
Nice review of a beautiful looking book: The Uyghurs: Kashgar before the Catastrophe
Photos are from 1998. Compare with the NYT photo essay from 2019 I linked in a post with some of my photos from 2004. What a place. ๐