After the grand luck of Dom and Liduina contacting me for a wedding haikyo shoot a few months back, I figured I couldn`t bank on the same thing happening again. If I wanted to shoot models in haikyo more, I`d have to get out there and find them myself. So I put out a casting call, not sure if anyone would reply. Well, several did, which was great. The first I organized a shoot with was Sara, at the Keishin Hospital.
With The Children of Hamlin by Carmen Carter it feels like we’re settling into a rhythm. The first book strained the characters in ways that didn’t feel realistic. Picard was a grumpy old git, Troi was flimsy, Riker was racked with self-doubt. By #3 though that stuff is ironed out, and the characters are basically acting as they should. The story is about the Children of Hamlin, who were abducted from their settlement by the Choraii, a bunch of crazy musical aliens. Of course it riffs off the story of the Pied Piper, but that never jars. In fact it’s all very understated- as TNG always is at its best.
The March-April edition of Outdoor Japan was my second time to present a feature article on haikyo, including photographs. This time I focused on Sports World, my all-time favorite haikyo.
They did a wonderful layout in spooky black with the photos given ample space to shine.
In addition I had the chance to go through the copy of the whole magazine with Gardener the editor and help out with proofing in general, which was great fun.
You can buy back-issues of OJ and of course Subscribe to future issues here.
I’ve mentioned my sister Alice on this site before– when she got her book ‘The High-Heeled Guide to Enlightenment‘ published. She spent a year of her life experimenting with various forms of spirituality- going to shamans, doing sweat lodges, having reiki crystal therapy, being regressed through past lives, etc… It’s a fascinating read I’d recommend to anyone interested in that sort of thing. Typically I’m not, but I’ll admit some of it got me thinking.
Anyway- since that book came out she’s been hard at work promoting the book and writing pieces for magazines based around the topics of the book. Somewhere along the way the idea emerged (from an editor she approached) that she should interview me about my ruins hobby, and how that kind of exploration has a spiritual element. So, she fired off some questions, I fired off some answers, and we had some back and forth. The result is the piece below, in the UK spirituality magazine ‘Kindred Spirit’. I haven’t got a copy myself yet, but am looking forward to it.
Ages ago now I went to Sensouji Temple for some reason, I can’t really remember. SY and I were doing a bit of Tokyo tourism I guess. I prepped these photos months ago but never got round to posting them, so here they are. If you like looking at shrines, you might enjoy these.
My buddy Mike Lynch has been writing fiction for as long as me, with both of us completing a novel while we were in University. Both of us went down the dystopic city route, though in very different ways. My novel, Jethro`s Fall, was about a guy in a post-apocalypse walled city, who follows all the corporate rules for success but is still miserable and seeking a way out. Mike`s is more of a trip back to a 1984-esque failed state, with a family struggling to survive under the dictator`s brutal regime.
About 10 years have passed since we finished them. I`ve thought occasionally about dusting mine off, while in the meantime Mike has been seriously reworking his. The result is a book eminently worthy of publication, thrillingly paced, intriguing, tense, gritty, and funny. However it has not so far been able to find publication. Mike took matters into his own hands and put the novel up on the Harper Collins site Authonomy, where authors vote for other authors` work, and the best get publishing contracts.
This is a plug for Mike`s book ‘Calloway Blood’ on that site. His blurb-
Fear is endemic.
If a man won’t bend, he will be broken.
This is Straybeck.
The Premier demands loyalty and, behind him, the Cathedral casts a long, black shadow.
Rob Calloway has fought before. He has paid a terrible price.
Ryan Calloway is weighed down by his father’s shame. Twenty years later he is drawn into the same fight.
His younger brother, John, wants to protect Ryan until they fall for the same girl.
Alia Turner is the daughter of a factory owner. She was part of Straybeck’s elite until a worker riot left her father a cripple.
Calloway Blood is the story of one family struggling to survive. In a terrifying city, we see a boy growing up too fast and a father and brother who can’t keep him safe.
If you have a spare moment, follow this link and read the first few chapters of his book. If you like it, consider joining the site and putting his book on your bookshelf, maybe even leaving a comment. It`ll be much appreciated, and will help Mike on his path to publication :).
I for one love the book- it’s kind of mix of American History X and 1984, very tersely written, with a real and growing sense of threat laced throughout the book. The characters are raw, funny, genuine, and by the end I felt like an extension of their family. A gripping ride, even though I’ve read it about 4 times in various drafts by now.
The Peacekeepers is the second Next Generation book, written by Gene DeWeese, and feels much more like a run-of-the-mill episode than the previous one Ghost Ship. We occasionally dip in and out of characters heads, but never for extended periods.
Instead we are faced with a simple conundrum that must be unraveled- a high-tech but derelict space pod grabs Geordi and Data and teleports them out of sensor range, bringing them into contact with a man who reveres them as ‘The Builders’ and wants nothing more than their approval for his use of their ‘gifts’.
When I went on the wedding haikyo shoot a few weeks back we stumbled upon this burnt down house. Normally I`d bypass it in favor of the target- in this case we were looking for the Hume factory, but that turned out to be demolished. We had some time to kill, so after looking into the nearby Pachinko Hall we decided to check out the house. Dom and Liduina posed a bit in front, but the light was going and none of us were really in the mood to do a proper shoot, so we just poked around inside.
They started releasing Star Trek Next Generation books almost simultaneously with the series on TV. The first book was a novelization of the pilot- `Encounter at Farpoint`. The second, listed as #1 on a roster that has now grown to over 70 books, was Ghost Ship by Diane Carey.
I read several of them when I was a kid and heavily into TNG. In the last few years I rewatched the whole of the TNG series run, and enjoyed it immensely. Now it`s time to read through the books, all of them, starting at #1.
Most of these books are out of print, so require (I thought) a bit of hunting down. In Tokyo that can be a little tricky- I know of only two second-hand book shops. I went to them both but found no TNG books. Apparently there are so many of them they`re typically in the 100yen boxes and come and go quite frequently.
The online fantasy game World of Warcraft is awash with ruins. Half of the in-game quests involve pilfering buried treasure from cities razed by the Scourge, temples leveled by the Lich King, and craters where force field-encapsulated cities once lay. A large part of the joy of the game (IMHO) comes from exploring these areas and their eerily haunting graphics.
