A few recent pictures

I took a few pictures that I like recently, so here you go.

A couple of the crops are unconventional, but these aren’t for printing, so who cares?

My Work Year in Review

As I sit here typing this on December 31, ostensibly a holiday, I suddenly realize that it might be depressing to be talking about work. At the same time, I both love my job AND don’t honestly work that much (weekdays, 9-3, lots of days out for location visits, interviews, etc.). So, I’m not too fussed about it. I get plenty of time to mess around.

So, anyway, here is my 2024 working year in numbers:

Rough number of Japanese characters translated: 645,000
- (Rough because some projects were more package-based than character based, and one novel overlapped New Year.)
Articles written: 15 (12 in Japanese)
Translation proposal packages written for publishers/rights agencies: 6
Novel translations completed: 3 (including the one that started in 2023)
Ceramic artists interviewed for book: 8

And none of that includes the hours spent taking pictures for books/articles, or reading for the job, or—most important of all!—the people I met. The numbers also don’t reflect the kind of seismic change that has happened in my work as I have become more plugged into the publishing industry. I’m now spending much less time on random corporate websites than I did last year (huzzah!) and more time with artists and creative people of all types. Again, Huzzah!

It has been a good year, professionally, and I think one that has sown the seeds for more good years to come. Fingers are crossed, wood is knocked on, salt is thrown over the shoulder, and every other good luck charm that might help it be so is invoked.

Personally, well, the world is what it is, but we’ve weathered things pretty well. I had a bad summer for a couple of reasons, but in general the Rion family in Japan has been blessed with pretty decent luck. I hope that 2025 is better, but I’d settle for roughly the same.

Anyway, I hope everyone has a lovely New Year, and wish you the best in 2025. To finish up, I am indeed curious. How were things for you in 2024?

Winter birds are best birds

The weather here has turned—well and truly, finally—to winter. Which means both dusky days, and winter birds.

Many of the birds I associate with winter, like white eyes or long-tailed tits, are present year round but are more visible because of bare branches. Others, like the ducks that stop on the rivers, are just passing through. All are welcome sights, though, making the cold walks worth it.

Here are some I spotted today, December 21, 2024. For the record.

A small, round, white and black bird perched in a bare tree. — Long-tailed tit outside the library.

A small duck with dark green patches on its face taking flight from a brown river. — Long-tailed tit outside the library.

2024 – Stuff I loved

It’s inevitable, I guess, to get retrospective at this time of year. I’ve more or less stopped keeping careful track of things like media consumption—no Goodreads lists for me, thank you—but it’s still sometimes interesting to review. And so, here is a non-comprehensive list of things that I remember enjoying very much in 2024. Travel, books, TV, whatever, I’m not going to be strict. These are all things that made my 2024 a better year than it would otherwise have been.

First up, I visited Inbe in Bizen, Okayama several times this year. It was wonderful. I met potters, enjoyed the scenery, and learned about its history and culture in a way that was vibrant and exciting.

A concrete torii gate stands across a bricked path. To each side are reddish brown ceramic koma-inu dog statues.

A small ceramic flask with a rounded shape and a sharp indentation along one side.

A rounded lump of clay kneaded into a folded, almost floral pattern

Another thing that made my 2024 better was engaging more actively and thoughtfully in photography. I’ve written about it before, but even apart from whatever high-minded ideas about “art” or “creativity” people want to layer onto it, the very fact of engaging in a new expressive medium has been great. I have been a “word guy” all my life. Trying to be an “image guy” now is really something special for me.

A smiling older man with a mustache. He is wearing a towel on his head, a large watch, and a black tanktop and is flexing his muscular arms. — Macho man

In the world of books, there have been a few standouts. The one that stands largest in my memory is The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera, which I reviewed on this blog. There’s not much else to say about it, except that its weight in my memory has only grown with time. Read it.

I also read and loved Premee Mohamed‘s The Siege of Burning Grass. It is a fantasy story set in a world at war, but the central protagonist is a true pacifist despite the brutal social pressures on being a good, patriotic subject of empire. It is a story about the irrationality of war and the true courage that is pacifism, and the pain that occurs when those are placed in irredeemable conflict. I should have reviewed it more thoroughly. It deserves much thought and rereading.

Another standout is the Japanese-language only (so far) horror book Kinkichiho no aru basho ni tsuite (About a certain place in the Kinki region) by Sesuji. It’s a “mocumentary” horror book that presents itself as a collection of research materials for a magazine, but ends up telling a story of generational evil, the terrors of the Japanese countryside, and creepy stuff in general. I loved it. I think the translation rights have been sold, but that is so far unconfirmed.

In related media, I still think about Fake Documentary Q a lot. I wish the book had been better.

Apart from all the old music I mostly listen to (shout out to Eric Satie’s Gymnopédies), the new album I listened to most is Daudi Matsiko’s The King of Misery. It seems perhaps inappropriate to talk about “enjoyment” regarding such an emotionally shredding/shredded work of art, but it is beautiful and alive and well worth listening to.

And, lest anyone get the idea that I went all high-brow and Big-C Cultural in 2024, I also watched the hell out of the Reacher series on Amazon Prime because there’s something unironically appealing about watching a very big man murder the fuck out of the Bad Guys.

What were some things that made your 2024 less terrible?

Tsurezure #9 – Hiyaoroshi

I find myself skipping a few articles that touched on personal matters that, while are fine for the local community, I’m not sure I want out in the whole world. But anyway. Here’s a somewhat (but not entirely) belated article about autumn’s sake, Hiyaoroshi.

日本酒の季語：ひやおろし

これから秋がやってきます。美味しい食材がたくさん採れる時期で体に染みる料理も次々にでてきます。そして、もちろん日本酒もおいしい季節です。

吞兵衛は秋と言ったら「ひやおろし」です。酒店やスパーの棚には紅葉色のラベルがたくさん並んでいるのを見たことがあるかもしれません。それは皆「ひやおろし」それか「秋あがり」です。日本酒業界の秋酒です。

元々日本酒造りの時期は秋から春にかけて大体4か月前後で今の時期には新酒がほとんどありません。今から出てくる「ひやおろし」は前期の春でしぼった日本酒です。でもそれだけではなく「いくつの特徴」があります。

日本酒は通常、火入(ひいれ)という殺菌・安定化の手順を二回行います。出来上がった酒を搾りそのあと貯蔵タンクに入れる際に一回、タンクから瓶詰の時に一回が普通です。「生(なま)酒(ざけ)」は火入れされておらず、「生貯蔵」は最初の火入れされていない意味と「生詰め」は二回目の瓶詰の火入れをされていません。「ひやおろし」は生詰の日本酒です。

そして「ひやおろし」は軽く熟成させた日本酒です。春に搾ったあと火入れされてタンク貯蔵されます。暑い夏のあいだに熟成し、そして涼しい秋が来たら瓶詰めし出荷されます。昔の酒蔵は今よりも衛生状態が優れておらず冷蔵技術もなかったため微生物が活発ではない涼しい時期にしかしっかり火入れされていない日本酒を出荷したらしいです。でも火入れ自体は日本酒の味や口当たりに影響を与えるので、できたらそのままの一番美味しい「熟成感」を皆さんに届けたい気持ちから「ひやおろし」が誕生したらしいです。

その名前は直接的にその事にも関わりがありそうです。確証ありませんが「ひやおろし」という言葉の由来にこの説があります。お酒を二回目の火入れをせず「冷やした」状態で瓶詰して客さんに「おろした」。説得力あります。。。

ところで「秋上がり」の本来の意味は「秋までねかしたら味が上がった（良くなった）もの」だそうです。という事は、もともと名称よりも味の説明のようなものです。でも今はほとんど「ひやおろし」と同じ意味として呼ばれることが多いようです。細かい違いがあるかもしれませんがそれは酒蔵のこだわりによると思います。

難しい話は別として「ひやおろし」は秋の味にぴったりな日本酒に間違いないです。夏の間に落ち着いて熟成によって旨味が増え、まろやかになった心地良い味わいを期待して燗酒にするのが毎年の吞兵衛の楽しみです。もちろん僕もそうです。

山口県の美味秋酒がたくさんありますが光市に近い蔵と言ったら酒井酒造(岩国市)の五橋「トラタン　ひやおろし」と中島屋酒造場(周南市)の「中島屋　秋上がり」、それとも山陽小野田市の永山酒造の「山猿　ひやおろし」が大のおすすめです。是非近くの酒屋さんで探してみてください。