Japan

Japanophile~

“Now it is raining, but we don’t know what will happen in the next moment. By the time we go out it may be a beautiful day, or a stormy day. Since we don’t know, let’s appreciate the sound of the rain now.”

Shunryu Suzuki • Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind

‘There’s also dessert – sorry, I mean the mizugashi course. So please take your time,’ said Koishi, shrugging her shoulders. ‘That’s right, Koishi. There’s no such thing as “dessert” in Japanese cuisine. The fruit served at the end of the meal is called mizugashi. We’re not in France, after all!’ said Tae, her nostrils flaring.

Jesse Kirkwood • The Kamogawa Food Detectives

The internet and software is only accelerating this trend: as coordination costs get lower, it becomes easier and easier for companies to use outside services instead of building capabilities internally, concentrating knowledge in fewer and fewer organizations.

Ise Jingu and the Pyramid of Enabling Technologies

Makiko was a hostess, but that can mean all kinds of different things. Some good, some not so good. Osaka is rife with drinking spots, but an address is enough to tell you what you should expect, in terms of clientele and atmosphere and hostesses. She worked in Shobashi, the neighborhood the three of us worked in for years after we ran off that

Mieko Kawakami, Sam Bett, • Breasts and Eggs

This is the point where my legs start to scream.

Haruki Murakami • What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Haiku is precise. It conforms to an exact syllabic count: the first line has five syllables, the second has seven, and the third has five. Within that container the poet’s wings expand in all directions, touching the ordinary and rendering it extraordinary. There is freedom in form.

Mirabai Starr • Wild Mercy: Living the Fierce and Tender Wisdom of the Women Mystics

Against Ikigai

Simone Stolzoff every.to

The lower shelves were where I kept the paperbacks I figured I’d never read again. The names on the spines, Herman Hesse, Raymond Radiguet, and Kyusaku Yumeno, had all faded in the sun. Lord of the Flies, Pride and Prejudice, and my Dostoyevsky, The Gambler, Notes from Underground, and The Brothers Karamazov. Chekhov, Camus, Steinbeck. The Odyssey