2023 Year in Review
Books Book that made me nod my head again and again and also left me deeply unsettled: Naomi Klein’s Doppelganger Best book about scary caves: The Luminous Dead Best use … Continue reading
Best of 2018
Hey there, blog that I update like twice a year! At least this time I’m actually getting my “best of” list out before January. Movies Managed to watch 69 movies … Continue reading
Best of 2016
Is 2016 fucking over yet? I said recently that my pre-election social mediaverse looked like that sweet first date video camera footage that they accidentally recorded an alien apocalypse over … Continue reading
Best of 2015
I’m a bit late with this list, but here it is. Japanese Movies (I saw 78 movies last year, a number I’d like to push to at least 100 this … Continue reading
Book Tribes
Wandering through the English language section of a Japanese bookstore a few years ago, I came across an English category marker labeled “chick lit.” I think it included half a … Continue reading
Nearer Dystopias: “Maddaddam,” “On Such a Full Sea,” and the Terror of the Familiar
(Warning: mild spoilers ahead, but nothing that would, in my opinion, lessen the enjoyment of any of the books under discussion.) If there’s one thing we can take away from … Continue reading
Equally Disinterested Minds: On Academic Writing
“People seemed to like (my) essay, but they were also uneasy about it. ‘I don’t think you’ll be able to publish this in an academic journal,’ someone said. He thought … Continue reading
The Suffering Other: Ruth Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being
Ruth Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being moves back and forth between a remote island in British Columbia and the urban blight of Tokyo, telling a story so heartbreaking … Continue reading
Adventures in (Post) Gradland 