Canadian Conservatives furiously looking up Vaclav Havel on Wikipedia in order to better condemn Carney for quoting him.

Over at the Other Place, they’re having a meltdown over Carney‘s speech. Which confirms to me how good it was.

Just heard that today is the 75th anniversary of Rabbit of Seville, which introduced so many of us to opera without us realizing it (“Welcome to my shop/ Let me cut your mop”).

Young guy in the corner of the last car on the subway (no, not me) noisily barfing his guts out. Bonenkai (Year-end party) season has officially begun in Osaka! 🎄

Canadian Conservatives (or their foreign assistants over at the Other Place) are losing their shit over Carney’s “Who cares?” comment, and I couldn’t be happier: www.cbc.ca/player/play/...

I wonder how much good early 21st century writing has been lost due to defunct sites?

Teatime at the hardware store.

Happy Culture Day, Japanfolk! Might celebrate simply this year, with yogurt on my cereal, then maybe a bit of cheese on my sandwich at lunchtime.

Still no kinmokusei (flowering olive), my favourite autumn flower, in my neighbourhood. Usually a mid-October flower. I miss their lovely fragrance.

Leisure suits are back.

It always fascinates me that men (mostly) will give up decades of their lives to campaign, sit through boring meetings, drink merrily with people they despise, on the off chance that, for a few months or a couple of years, they can be prime minister of Japan. Human cicadas.

Why so many cops at the train stations (and even on the Midosuji Line train I’m on) these days? Is it to keep those nasty tourists in line? Not used to it.

Spare a thought for George Orwell on his birthday. Poor bugger thought he was writing fiction.

A new and exciting fleet of bots at the Other Place now, arguing that JD Vance is a better theologian than Pope Leo. Blessed are the petty.

Japanese houses: ingeniously designed so that you’re never too hot in the winter or too cold in the summer.

“Archive the Future,” says the cap worn by the woman across from me on the Sakaisuji Line.

WabiSabi

Election night post-mortem: The Panel really don’t want to be sitting next to Jason Kenney. And I don’t blame them.

As the Canadian election enters the home stretch, and older Canadians are abandoning the Conservative Party in droves, the right-wing bots and trolls at the Other Place have replaced “pedo” with “boomer,” in their personal attacks, but basically are sticking to the same script.

Interesting reading how so many people at the Other Place, who had never heard of Neil Young until today, when he endorsed Mark Carney, are saying they’re never going to listen to his music again.

Instagram has been flooded with ads on how to renounce your US citizenship. I can’t imagine why, as their government seems to think everybody wants to be American.

Me in the national security group chat.

Might as well be rain Be careful what you wish for Wet Osaka snow.

Happy New Year, folks.

Some of the deeply saddest toupees in the known universe reside in Japan.

If Harris had won, I don’t think the pardon would have been necessary. But the old man knows the vindictiveness of the next regime and couldn’t put his son through it. The end.

And then, suddenly, it was cold.

This was peeking over a fence at me as I was making my way to the dentist’s.

I think from today, I’ll start referring to JD whatzizname as Isabel Perón.

Osaka, City of Contrasts, Pt2.

It’s official: every work shirt I own now has an ink stain on it.

Sudden rain in Momodani.

Oddly, this was not accepted.

35°C in Osaka today and virtually no one is wearing shorts because it’s September.

Wordle 1,164 2/6 🟧🟦🟧🟦🟧 🟧🟧🟧🟧🟧 Well that was…unexpected!

The Other Place now throwing up AI ads almost faster than I can block them.

Covid. Off work until the 14th. After two days of utter misery, I am finally well enough to feel bored.

Highly recommend Colson Whitehead’s Harlem Shuffle and Crook Manifesto. Just finished the latter and am eagerly awaiting the third part of the trilogy.

WabiSabi

While out for an evening walk in Osaka, city of contrasts.

I can’t remember the last time I heard a shamisen.

Yesterday my friend in Tokyo told me a crow stole one of his coat hangers off his balcony and, no, it wasn’t an April Fools joke and that it’s an actual Tokyo crow thing to steal coat hangers. Life in Osaka just can’t compare.

Fairly old man seen pushing his wheelchair out of the Life supermarket, Nagai branch, the seat piled high with six-packs of Kirin Ichiban Shibori.

This morning I learned a local 50-seat art house cinema is having a Yasujiro Ozu retrospective (w/o subtitles because Osaka) and I’m all aflutter even though I’ve watched them all on DVD a million times. There’s something about a big screen.

¥300 from a secondhand shop in MinamiMorimachi. Hardcover, great condition. Wonder if it’s any good?

I took out an online subscription to my hometown newspaper the other month, and now I feel like Hawkeye Pierce reading the Crabapple Cove Courier every evening. In a good way.