Something begins to happen, when I travel, just short of three weeks into a trip. I used to think I began to wear out at that point because the travel itself was strenuous. I remember feeling an urge in Vietnam once to be home again, sitting on my own couch, drinking Diet Coke from my own glass. It sounds pathetic, but there is something important in it.
Doctor Who, “The Ghost Monument” Series 11, Episode 2 Written by Chris Chibnall Directed by Mark Tonderai Starring Jodie Whittaker, Tosin Cole, Mandip Gill, and Bradley Walsh Guest Starring Shaun Dooley, Susan Lynch, and Art Mali Original Broadcast 14 October 2018 (49 minutes) The Ghost Monument awaits…
I had the strange but wonderful pleasure of meeting Chrissy while taking a stroll on Manhattan’s Lower West Side.
Editor’s note: This post inaugurates the first in a series of 11 reviews of the recent reboot of Doctor Who, cast with a female doctor. Doctor Who, “The Woman Who Fell to Earth” Series 11, Episode 1 Written by Chris Chibnall Directed by Jamie Childs Starring Jodie…
When Bashō, following Zen, implies again and again that life is a dream, something in me rebels. His entire practice was to capture concrete, sensory details of the physical world, so “dreamlike” seems like a contradiction. Yet even his final hokku, dictated as he was dying, and partial because his…
Fifteen miles down the rail line from Hiroshima, City of Peace, is the Kure Maritime Museum, more commonly called The Yamato Museum, a paean to the greatness of Japan’s navy in WWII. The Yamato, largest battleship ever built, was completed at Kure Dockyard the week after Pearl Harbor and was…
As the site of the world’s first atomic-bombing, and a consequence of suffering its horrors, Hiroshima calls itself “City of Peace” and promotes nonviolence and nuclear disarmament. But it is also a normal, mid-century-ugly city, with 1.2 million inhabitants, a diverse modern economy, a symphony, museums, parks, a pro baseball…
It was hot in Kyoto, with the Gion Festival underway, and it would stay hot. Globally it was the hottest month in recorded history. In a week, 57 people died in Japan and another 18,347 were taken to hospital for heat injuries. There was a high-pressure…
I was caught off-guard, in Matsumoto and then Yamanaka Onsen—the middle of Honshu—to find Bashō again. That was only because I had personalized his journey through northern Japan by walking a small part of it myself. But I knew he returned home by walking down the western coast and across…
At the train station announcers called, Matsumooootoooooo, over and over again, as a Japan Rail employee issued tickets to Hotaka, with Japan’s largest wasabi farm. It was overcast in Nagano Prefecture, hot and muggy despite the elevation of what are called the Japanese Alps. Hotaka, now…