November

Hi. :) I’m getting this post started on the flight home to Portland from Japan. Scheduling a trip just before election day wasn’t intentional, but now that it’s over… I think it was brilliant. Most of the political texts arrived while I was sleeping and so I got to clock and delete them in one swoop. I voted two weeks ago, baby!! It’s now Sunday night, and I just did some phone-banking before I plug fully back into my weekly routine. I’m very excited to see what happens with Portland’s local races. I’m going to call some voters again tomorrow (Monday) night if anyone wants to join—lemme know and we can join the Zoom together.

I knew that Japan and the Pacific Northwest have some shared mood and spirit, but seeing and feeling it all kinda blew my mind. Hot springs and the low clouds on the mountains! So many of the same plants! My fatsia japonica is always looking crispy and I feel inspired by so many I saw in Tokyo thriving in the shade to give it more cover. Huge freaky spiders. The Hummingbird Hawk Moth?! A divine creature!

I know lots of folks are planning trips to Japan this year and early next, and so I thought I’d share a few things that made this trip delightful. It was a well-needed feast for my heart and eyes.

A style report: The whole Global Village Coffeehouse thing is in, as is turquoise jewelry. Oasis was playing everywhere, and lots of folks were wearing Dodger’s caps. I saw a guy in the Ebisu Kapital store dressed like a swaggy pirate in like, the best (hot) way. We spent a day at Tokyo DisneySea with my sister-in-law and nieces (they flew up from Singapore) and the cosplay was inspiring… I saw three gals dressed up like the sparkly baby oysters from Alice in Wonderland!

There’s a spectacular show at the 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT museum right now called pooploop, all about waste and cycles of regeneration. It is mindblowing in scope and presentation, and includes some really fabulous conceptual craft pieces, like these repaired-and-then-refired ceramics by Toshio Matsui:

And human hair explored as an infinite resource that can replace materials like tortoise shell or tropical wood… these are really made outta hair, and so gorgeous!

There’s also a piece about how airplanes get recycled… !

Expansive, goofy, well-researched—this is really my kind of show. There’s even a piece about graphic designers grappling with materials use. (I didn’t get any good photos of it.)

I was inspired by a lot of graphics on this trip, and a great show at kyoto ddd gallery. It’s about identity design in Germany after 1945 and made up of glossy posters, spot-color catalogues, and other print materials.

In that spirit, sharing some of the print ephemera I collected:

I was stoked to visit Komiyama Bookstore on Jordan’s recommendation. I was a little overwhelmed shopping in-person and didn’t buy anything on the spot, but will be checking in online and referring to their catalogue for design references in the future.

As for clothes… I mostly window-shopped. I had a hard time finding any women’s clothes in my size and got awkwardly body-shamed a couple times. Those moments were mostly humorous—I’ll tell you about them if we chat soon—but did turn me off trying things on. I had spiritual retail experiences at Ron Herman (just exceptional women’s selection) and Jantiques (best vintage sourcing I’ve ever seen).

The last trip-thing I’ll add is that Zack and I stayed in some really lovely hotels and ryokans. In Tokyo: Cerulean Tower (’80s in a good way), Mustard Hotel Shimokitazawa (tiny and affordable), and Yuen Bettei Daita (true gourmet bathing). The Ace in Kyoto and Kinnotake Sengokuhara in Hakone were both great too. I was on a credit card points spree this year and really blew ’em all on hotels. ;)

Sending lovebeams to you all. Hang in there!!