Listening: Dexter Gordon's Go

Listening to one of my first 5 jazz albums this morning takes...

The Chronicles of a New York Locksmith

A touching small feature from The New Yorker about a small locksmith...

Time is Joy (“El tiempo es alegría”)

Pablo Neruda by Pablo Neruda Listen and learn. Time is divided into...

Kalahari Desert, 6am

Kalahari Desert, 6am - Henry Isaacs A largish (50") limited edition of...

The Golden House

On the day of Barack Obama’s inauguration, an enigmatic billionaire from foreign...

The Assault

Mulisch's remarkable novel begins with a tragic turn of events for the...

The Narrow Road to the Deep North

Matsuo Bashō’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North (Oku no Hosomichi)...

Stoner

Had Raymond Carver written a novel, it may have been a lot...

2025 Lists & Favorites

Another year, and another (a first) look back at some of my...

Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre follows its titular heroine from her miserable childhood through her...

Peak Hong Kong

Photo taken in 2011 using a Tokina f2.8 / 8-12mm wide-angle lens...

Shadow Ticket

The milieu of the novel is Milwaukee in the 1930s: prohibition, the...

Insta-rescue: Japan

I'm in the process of decoupling from Meta to the extent possible....

Insta-rescue: Around Hong Kong

I'm in the process of decoupling from Meta to the extent possible....

Yellow-faced myna

Photographed some time ago at the Edward Youde Aviary. Appearance: This is...

The Swimming Pool

By artist Leandro Erlich. About the artwork In one of the museum’s...

What We Can Know

The thematic core of the novel interrogates the limits of knowledge and...

US Bruce Lee postal stamps

New US Postal Service commemorative stamp: Bruce Lee, Hong Kong star of...

Koi Noir

This koi was a bit camera shy. Perhaps he knows where people...

The Swimmer

Ned Merrill is at a party and suddenly envisions himself as a...

In Xanadu

On a travel adventure to commemorate Marco Polo's journey along the Silk...

Nocturnes

A collection of five somewhat interrelated short stories by Kazuo Ishiguro; most...

September Sunrise

What 5:30ish a.m. looks like from Hong Kong Island facing northeast. Another...

Antarctica

Antarctica is Claire Keegan's first collection of short stories. I separate these...

Seven Empty Houses

The seven stories and seven houses, as in Samanta Schweblin's short story...

Queen of Spades

The moment I began reading this, I recalled reading it in high...

The Dog of the South

I can read a Portis novel, come to the end, turn back...

Cuba Libre

Leonard made extensive use of research and a researcher named Gregg Sutter...

The Hunted

Elmore Leonard is a guilty pleasure of mine. I read far more...

Banyan Tree Food

A hungry banyan tree is recycling the signage at King George V...

The Fools in Town are on Our Side

Some light summer reading. No analysis or review here. The following is...

The River Between

Set in colonial Kenya and centered on the conflict between traditional Kikuyu...

Gion-ji Moss Garden, Arashiyama

More photos that I discovered on the data card that I time-machined...

Things Become Other Things

This is a great book to own in its physical form, as...

Speedboat

Is this a novel or a bunch of short stories? I asked...

Trademarks & Symbols

From my copy of vol. 1 (1973) While there is scant biographical...

New words - flowers

I try to learn new Chinese words at least once a week...

Ralph Fiennes' Four Quartets

An important theme of T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets is how we interpret...

Brazilian Jasmine

Endemic to Rio de Janeiro, Brazilian jasmine is not a true jasmine....

Zebra Dove

Another lost, now found photo from a SanDisk memory card. The zebra...

Sooty-headed bulbul

The sooty-headed bulbul is one of the more common birds seen in...

Movie Review: The Substance

SPOILERS ABOUND HERE The Substance, when it comes down to it, has...

M31: A family romance

M31 is the oddest book I've read in a while, and for...

My Markdown file automator

I’ve been testing out 11ty, a static site generator that uses Markdown...

Brexit Music: Baptiste Trotignon

Jockey Club, Happy Valley

And they're off! Neck and neck toward the finish line This horse...

Disappearing neon signs

Once a hallmark of Hong Kong (and many other cities), neon signs...

Greater Green Leaf bird

There's the green leaf bird and then there's the greater green leaf...