Inspirational (Particularly for the Older Cohort)

Meet Miyazaki Shinji: Defying an age myth: How Japanese translator learned 9 languages from age 49 - The Mainichi https://share.google/JCryWybEOTsiBRFrX

Megane no Ojiichan

Just amazing. From paper to plate: 80-year-old Osaka man crafts stunning 'fake food' with washi - The Mainichi https://share.google/09slxrHeWxcwwrrtd Also here: Instagram https://share.google/uQ1RCqU7fibm0rubs

Blackboard Art

NHK, the public broadcaster, airs the most interesting programs. Tuned in yesterday evening (after the sumo, nice to see Kirishima crowned champion) to a show about chalkboard art and a national competition in the discipline (including whiteboard and video) for secondary students. See the winners here: 2025年大会 結果発表 | 日学・黒板アート甲子園®2025 https://share.google/kb9sEqkA1O9fpK1Y7

Bummer

March 20, a national holiday to celebrate the spring equinox (春分の日), and a glorious, spring-like day it was in Niigata. Among those I passed along the popular Shimano River embankment 'yasuragitei': a family of three, the daughter wearing a MAGA cap, she looked to be the same age as the 150 schoolgirls killed in Tehran. Sigh.

With Friends Like These

The leader of the free world during his audience with Japanese PM Takaichi when asked by a Japanese reporter why he hadn't forewarned allies of the Iran attack: One thing you don’t want to signal too much, you know, when we go in, we went in very hard and we didn’t tell anybody about it because we wanted surprise. Who knows better about surprise than Japan?” There was laughter in the room but the president had not finished. He asked mischievously: “Why didn’t you tell me about Pearl Harbor?” Suddenly the laughter died away. Takaichi’s eyes widened and she shifted in her chair as Trump evoked the moment that drew the US into the second world war.- The Guardian Could this not also be a reference, however oblique and unintentional, to the A-bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which killed 180,000 (conservative figure)? I'm not accusing that person of subtlety, mind you.

穴守稲荷、夜の景色

New Orleans French Market

Lafcadio Hearn, 1877: "Oranges fifty cents a hundred- twelve for a nickel" is a daily cry nowadays in the French Market, and they are good, large, ripe, sweet oranges, too... I remember when one could purchase veg and fruit (perhaps not local) at the French Market. Late 80s, early 90s, that was. Don't go there now: vendors hawking the same kitsch hawked throughout the Quarter at scores of identical stalls amd tourist traps. And the public restrooms are vile.

Street Nomenclature

Hearn: "Much of the early history of New Orleans might be traced alone in the names of the old streets..."

34 Years After

Anonymous donor gives 10 mil. yen to parents of Japanese student fatally shot in US - The Mainichi https://share.google/aDaw9Oz0rXDmdKARN There may be moral arcs somewhere that bend towards justice, but not in the US, not with guns: since Hattori Yoshihiro was killed in my hometown, Baton Rouge, LA, 34 years ago, guns have claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands. As we're on moral arcs, none here, either: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/mar/15/ai-defense-warfare-companies

Jackson Square (Updated)

The famous eques

trian statue of Andrew Jackson in the eponymous square at the heart of the French Quarter.

From the pedestal: "The Union must and shall be preserved." Stirring declaration from a man whose public statements and acts regarding the union might strike the reader of history as pro-South. His actions vis a vis indigenous peoples in the southeast are less conflicted or complex, for Andrew was the architect of the Trail of Tears, the forced relocation of tribes such as the Seminole and Choctaw. A sad and despicable history it is. There stands the Cathedral in the background, as if in benediction. From Hearn's "New Orleans in Wet Weather": I wandered through the French Quarter into Jackson Square and proceeded to examine the great equestrian statue of Andrew Jackson, erect upon a rampant steed. Upon the eastern face of the stone I beheld characters deeply graven, and I discovered that the characters were even these: "The Union Must And Shall Be Preserved." Thrn I inquired what might be the history of these extraordinary inscriptions, and received this pithy, trisyllabic and all-satisfying reply: "Beast Butler" (much despised Union general who seized and occupied NO in 1862)

La Cuisine Creole

Lafcadio Hearn introduced New Orleans's rich culinary culture to the English-speaking world with the publication of "La Cuisine Creole" in 1885. I wanted my own copy of the cookbook and was fortunate to find one at Faulkner House Books (as related in a previous post), but a digital version is available here: lacuisinecreolec00hearrich.pdf https://share.google/9wg9gHyFBMNL7GiKt

Photos: catfish po-boy (or poor boy), beignets and cafe au lait