Another book I’ve put together and recently sent out to select agents is my haikyo book. I have sent it out before, but then only to a limited spread of Japan-based publishers. This time I went more international. Already I got a few replies, some of them advising me on which agents I should approach. The comments I’ve got have been positive, with one main proviso- that it’s quite esoteric. It’s true, haikyo is a specific niche, but I think ruins in general appeal broadly. Hook that market, plus the Japan-loving nerd market, that’s not a bad niche. Here are … Read More
The Dawn Cycle 1. The Rise of the Truth
I`ve written a book. The working title is The Rise of The Truth, and it`s the first book of The Dawn Cycle, a saga of 5 fantasy books following Dawn on his quest to take care of business. In the last couple of days I put together submission packets for literary agencies, including query letters and book-jacket `blurbs`. I sent the book out to a selection of agents by email and post. Because I`m in Japan, sending to the US and UK, the few by post cost me $100 in postage. A small price to pay for hope, SY says. … Read More
Haikyo Pachinko Hall
Last week`s haikyo wedding shoot at the Volcano Museum was supposed to only be the first of two locations. We scarpered out of there at double-time to make it to the Hume Cement Factory in Saitama, a place I visited only 5 months ago, along with fellow haikoyists Mike, Mike, and Lee. Liduina would don a second outfit she`d brought along, a kind of kimono, and we`d explore a whole other kind of shoot. What we found instead.
Volcano Museum 4. Haikyo Wedding
I`ve been thinking for a long time about shooting models in a haikyo. I bought a flash (SB-600), a flash-stand, and even took a lesson on flash, but still the thinking remained thinking and not shooting. I had no desire to go on a practise shoot that wasn`t in a haikyo, but I was too shy to take a model solo to a haikyo without any experience. Quite a quandary. In the end the answer came to me, in the form of Dom. Dom found my site and got in contact about his vision for a wedding photo shoot; him, … Read More
Orson Scott Card’s ‘Ender in Exile’ – book review
Orson Scott Card is one of the most hit-or-miss authors I know of. When he`s good, in books like Ender`s Game, Ender`s Shadow, the early Alvin Maker books, he`s truly awesome, a storyteller to be reckoned with who has great insight into what makes people tick. When he`s bad, he`s awful, with pages of banter and pages of introspection populated with passive aggressive characters who are manipulating each other to the nth degree. Ugh. So it was with great trepidation that I picked up his latest Ender book, Ender in Exile, supposed to be filling in the time right after … Read More
Hiroshima A-bomb dome
At 8:15 on August 6 1945 the first nuclear bomb in the history of warfare detonated over Hiroshima, obliterating the city within a 1.5 mile radius and killing outright some 80,000 people, with around another 70,000 dying of radiation and burns by the end of the year. Japanese pilots flying on reconnaissance missions to the city after all radio transmissions went dead said that `practically all living things, human and animal, were literally seared to death`. The A-bomb dome (genbaku dome, originally Hiroshima Trade Promotion Hall) was only 150 meters away from the blast hypocenter. It survived because of its … Read More
Tiger Man sighted!
Yesterday SY and I went to see `I love you Philip Morris` in Shinjuku Piccadilly. As is our style now, we bought KFC in with us, sat in the front rows, and guzzled for about half of the movie. The movie itself is pretty funny, and quite sweet at points, with Ewan Mcgregor acting all adorable and Jim Carrey hopelessly in love with him. Anyway, what I`m talking about here is Tiger-man. I spotted Tiger Man as we were leaving the theater. I guess he was watching the same movie. SY didn`t see him so for about five floors we … Read More
Diggnation!
The guys on diggnation from Revision 3 covered my asylum top 10 ghost town article on their most recent show. This is awesome. I don`t customarily watch the show- I`ve got Scott to thank for the notification- but am well aware of digg, and of the comings and goings of co-host Kevin Rose thanks to his appearances on This Week in Tech. It`s fantastic to have him reading and liking my article and photos- even if he does garble one sentence from the text. Thanks to the guys on diggnation for choosing this article to cover, and thanks to everyone … Read More
Ruin of a Japanese WWII Shipyard
The Kawaminami shipyard was opened in 1936 and went bankrupt in 1955. It had four huge bays and two large factory buildings. Through the war years it served as both a munitions factory, a drydock for construction of cargo ships, escort ships, and kaitens, and possibly also as a Prisoner of War (POW) slave labor camp. By some accounts up to 4000 POWs were forced to work here during wartime. The main factory hall. History on the place has been hard to come by definitively. According to official POW internment records, it never had POWs. According to other sites it … Read More
Ruins of the Statue of Liberty
The Statue of Liberty is an icon, a beacon-fire at America`s shore calling out to all and sundry- `come on in, there`s plenty of room!` To destroy her is to denounce the very idea of America, to throw that generosity of spirit back in her face and cry out `who needs you?` Aliens have done this a few times. Meteors twice. Global warming and global sanding have been involved also. In disaster movies the destruction of Lady Liberty has become something of a cliche, but that doesn`t stop it from being awesome. Read on for the gallery.