Monthly Archives: May 2015

Nerds

Posted on May 15, 2015 by d4vid

Spending time with My People at the very first Comic Con in Shanghai. Here is a list of some of the cosplay I’ve seen today: Chinese Tauriel Chinese Professor Snape Chinese Lucius Malfoy Chinese Captain America Chinese Captain America (gender … Continue reading →

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Firefly

Posted on May 15, 2015 by d4vid

The Chinese word for “highlighter” is 荧光笔 (yíngguāng bǐ) which translates to “firefly pen”.

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Art

Posted on May 11, 2015 by d4vid

Ten years ago (ten years!) my dear, dear, dear friend Martin and I went to the Festival Fringe in Edinburgh.  We saw the work of a Chinese artist named Cao Guo-Qiang who did ghostly portraits and other pieces using gunpowder. … Continue reading →

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Corbijn

Posted on May 11, 2015 by d4vid

 Took this artsy photo of Eli on his cell phone in the Power Station.  Looks like an Anton Corbijn album cover, if I do say so myself.   

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Power

Posted on May 11, 2015 by d4vid

Yesterday, I went with Eli & Nafees to the Power Station of Art.  (The URL for the website is hilarious with a little rebracketing.)  It’s a cavernous, retired power plant that the national government converted to a modern art museum at great … Continue reading →

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Daimyo

Posted on May 11, 2015 by d4vid

Thanks to late 70s/early 80s anime, I grew up kind of obsessed with Japan.  For example, I have long known that a “daimyo” was a feudal ruler back in the era of the shoguns.  But I had only ever seen … Continue reading →

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Ultranationalists

Posted on May 5, 2015 by d4vid

Eli and I kept running into a caravan of Japanese ultranationalists around the neighborhood of the American embassy.  Megaphones.  Imperial flags.  Recorded shouts from a Nutemberg-sized crowd.  It was all way more ominous than this merely vaguely ominous plaque by … Continue reading →

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Maids

Posted on May 5, 2015 by d4vid

Some things about Japanese culture I just don’t get.  There are areas where you can’t walk five steps without being solicited by a Japanese teen with a babygirl voice wearing a maid’s uniform.  Solicited for what?  Still unclear to me. … Continue reading →

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Cuddly

Posted on May 5, 2015 by d4vid

Love this Big Hero 6 poster I found in a giant electronics store.  

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Advice

Posted on May 5, 2015 by d4vid

Found by the escalators up to the train platforms.

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Daikaiju

Posted on May 5, 2015 by d4vid

There is a gigantic, glowing Godzilla statue looming over the buildings of Shinjuku. Which reminds me of my favorite paraphrase of a line from Patriot Games: There has never been a daikaiju attack on American soil. Think about it.  

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Jaeger

Posted on May 5, 2015 by d4vid

Went to an insane robot restaurant/dinner show in Shinjuku.  Found this photo of Guillermo hanging by the ticket line.

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Careers

Posted on May 5, 2015 by d4vid

Saw this shop by our hotel in Shinagawa.  So many questions…

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Cubic

Posted on May 5, 2015 by d4vid

If dwarves carved lion statues they would look like this.  

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Asimov

Posted on May 2, 2015 by d4vid

You order your sushi on a personal touchscreen.  Your sushi zips to you on robot trolleys.  This is the future, people: “A robot must not harm sushi or through inaction allow sushi to come to harm.”

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