I found a very cool Japan blog today. I have a great blog roll in my right-hand column, and recommend a look at each item on it: with the caveat that some should not be opened at work, or by the moralistic, because I believe you're adult enough to do your own censorship, or not. I won't say the blog is the best, or better than others, but will say it's an original.
FIXES
A lot like the excellent '
Spike Japan', minus the essays: Japanese decay of the built-environment. Lots of windblown concrete, rebar, and rust.
I'm interested in real-world urbanism, and you-and-I-who've-lived-here know that is what most of what we've lived in here looks like. Not like this.
Bite me,
JNTO.
Cool! Interesting site. Not typical for sure which is itself a good thing. Spike is huge. Doesn't look like it but apparently quite mammoth.
ReplyDeleteSpike's 'Pachiguy' has mined a new vein in Japonica, and well. He's not the first guy to visit 'Haikyo', but he does more than that, and writes well. He needs to get his stuff into a book and part of a living from it, for all the work he's done. I'd take the same text, but wrap it around high quality photography, not that his is poor.
ReplyDeleteI have a post in the works that will have echoes of Spike, apologetically, because the nature of where I went on a short holiday makes it inevitable: a 'Bubble' era resort.
yeah, kudos to Spike, the least advertised best visited blog. The effort that obviously goes into each post...
ReplyDeleteFIXES. I don't miss the concrete and asphalt jungle of Tokyo. But then again, I don't miss the temples and gardens that much either.
"Least advertised best visited blog"? Do you mean that people who hit it once keep coming back? There are a lot of Japan blogs alike, and I revisit few. I'd wonder if mine is similar, except it is a half-blood Japan blog: the other half is all mongrel.
ReplyDeleteThat second picture is a work of art and was probably really hard to take. The photographer had to be careful to leave the wires out of the frame. The cars in the background are also out of the picture. It has many merits.
ReplyDeleteWith that said, the top picture looks like a neighborhood near my apartment. A bunch of small houses like that are all put together in a small neighborhood. It's like a small reservation.