Good afternoon,
In my previous newsletter, I mentioned the peculiarities of winter in Japan. I forgot to mention one. Winter arrives pretty brutally in Japan.
Until now, it was unseasonably warm (the climate crisis may have something to do with it), and then, suddenly, on Friday, the winds of Winter (still not a Game of Thrones reference) reared their ugly end.
See, Japan is sandwiched in between the largest body of water on the planet and the largest landmass on the planet. When the air comes from the ocean (for most of the year), it means relatively warm temperatures. Then, invariably, and eventually, sometime near the end of the calendar year, the winds from eastern Siberia come down to Japan, and the temperature can drop 10°C or more in a day. And they’re pretty strong winds. And they’ve been here for two days now and will return regularly until the end of March.
So, yes, it’s cold and I am spending my weekend inside.
Online, I focused on my “Japanese activities” lately. The general information about the Setouchi Triennale 2022 has been released recently, so I updated my website, especially its most “important” page for people interested in the festival. I don’t want to brag, but it’s possibly the most important page in English on the web about this art festival.
You can read it there:
Setouchi Triennale 2022
I also posted a very short video on Youtube about an artwork that can be found on Naoshima, the most famous of the “art islands” in my area. It’s called Naoshima Pavilion and the artist is Sou Fujimoto (he really is an architect).
Enjoy:
And if you wonder why the video has no sound, it’s because the only sound you’d get would be the jackhammers nearby. :-)
In other news, if you wondered before about the circumflex accent in French (it is this one: â, ê, î, ô, û), I explain most of what there is to know about it on Swamp Media:
A few things about the circumflex accent in French
Finally, just a small thing on Liminal Web, it’s a picture of rue de Vaugirard in Paris that I took back when I lived in the city. Do you know what is special about this street? You can guess in the comments or click on the link above to find the answer.
OK, that’s all for today.
Oh, one last thing. I was introduced to an app called Wombo Dream and that creates “AI art” and the results can sometimes be amazing. Check this out (I entered “liminal web” as a keyword):