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Greg de St. Maurice

@gdsm.bsky.social
600 followers 287 following 95 posts

Cultural anthropology • Food studies • Japanese studies • Craft, cuisine, place, branding, design

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Greg de St. Maurice @gdsm.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
This made me smile. I happen to be wearing a different set of FamiMa socks at the moment too. mainichi.jp/english/arti...
mainichi.jp
Socks from Japan's FamilyMart convenience store save Uzbek volleyball team at Asian Games - The Mainichi
NAGOYA --
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Greg de St. Maurice @gdsm.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
Education about Asia does great work. The editor position comes with an annual stipend too.
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Greg de St. Maurice @gdsm.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
Aarhus University gastronomy conference, Aarhus Denmark, 29 September to 1 October 2026. The deadline for proposals is 15 May so another week to go conferences.au.dk/gastro
conferences.au.dk
Gastronomy in Transition
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Greg de St. Maurice @gdsm.bsky.social · 30/01/2026
nytimes.com
How Losing My Limbs Turned Me Into a Different Kind of Cook
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Greg de St. Maurice @gdsm.bsky.social · 21/12/2025
Mid-morning after rain. The smell of wood and fallen leaves. A crow and a pigeon silently make appeals for the breadcrumbs a woman scatters for the ducks and carp.
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Greg de St. Maurice @gdsm.bsky.social · 18/12/2025
The bus will return in 90 minutes. I have that much time to watch the sky’s colors intensify and darken, the stars appear, and the nearby lighthouse’s beam sweep through the dark landscape. I can hear insects and the waves on both sides.
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Greg de St. Maurice @gdsm.bsky.social · 01/12/2025
As much as people talk about native and foreign or imported and domestic, I love those Japanese sweets that totally draw on European culinary culture. Chocolate manju, milk manju, I appreciate you.
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Greg de St. Maurice @gdsm.bsky.social · 17/10/2025
Fascinating stuff.
popsci.com
Migrating moths can read the stars
Even with brains smaller than a grain of rice, Bogong moths are expert navigators.
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Greg de St. Maurice @gdsm.bsky.social · 01/10/2025
scientificamerican.com
You Say Potato, Evolution Says Tomato
About nine million years ago, a hybridization involving the lineage of another farmers market star gave rise to the modern-day cultivated potato
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Nick Kapur @nickkapur.bsky.social · 20/07/2025
It's really saddening the extent to which xenophobic anti-foreigner-blaming rhetoric has completely taken over the Japanese election, in many ways distracting from much more significant issues affecting Japanese society. japanesemodernity.substack.com/p/xenophobic...
japanesemodernity.substack.com
Xenophobic Rhetoric in the 2025 House of Councillors Campaigns
In the lead-up to the July 2025 House of Councillors election, nearly all parties—especially right-leaning ones—devoted significant attention to proposals on foreign residents (Asahi Shimbun 2025a).
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Greg de St. Maurice @gdsm.bsky.social · 18/07/2025
Unconscionable. I hope this gets remedied soon. Thankfully, there are NGOs doing admirable work to prevent human trafficking, rescue victims, and bring perpetrators to justice.
theguardian.com
Trump cuts 69 global programs tackling child labor and human trafficking
More than $500m in grants axed as US risks decades of progress in protecting vulnerable workers worldwide
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mulboyne.bsky.social @mulboyne.bsky.social · 14/07/2025
The other day, I was telling friends and family how a housewife originated these Tokyo Metro transfer and exit guides, and they thought I was kidding. It used to be a well-known story. If you don't know it, here's a quick summary.
Photo of a Nanboku Line 乗り換え 出口案内 (transfer and exit guide) on a station platform.
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Greg de St. Maurice @gdsm.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
“We might also be heading toward something like Posting Zero, a point at which normal people—the unprofessionalized, uncommodified, unrefined masses—stop sharing things on social media as they tire of the noise, the friction, and the exposure.” Social media minus the social?
newyorker.com
Are You Experiencing Posting Ennui?
Sharing casual moments from our lives on social media doesn’t seem to make sense the way it used to.
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Greg de St. Maurice @gdsm.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
“A lot of my peers understand that nothing is guaranteed really, no matter what you study, so you should just study the thing that matters the most to you,” Balh said. “AI doesn't feel like a reason to stop making art. If anything, it’s a reason to keep making and insist on making art.”
gothamist.com
NYC art schools see record-high application numbers as Gen Zers clamber to enroll
Yes, even in this economy.
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Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 10/07/2025
The Maintainers have released their “Maintainers Study Guide: A Guide to Ground Your Practice in Principles of Maintenance, Repair + Care” — a resource that “reflects nearly a decade of work” across The Maintainers’ conferences, fellowships, research networks, etc themaintainers.org/study-guide/
The study guide cover — white background, photo of a garage packed with tools, and the title
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WIRED @wired.com · 07/07/2025
The age of the AI scraping free-for-all may be coming to an end—at least if Cloudflare gets its way. The IT infrastructure firm has switched to blocking AI crawlers by default for its customers and is moving forward with a Pay Per Crawl program.
wrd.cm
Cloudflare Is Blocking AI Crawlers by Default
The age of the AI scraping free-for-all may be coming to an end. At least if Cloudflare gets its way.
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Greg de St. Maurice @gdsm.bsky.social · 06/07/2025
archaeologymag.com
DNA reveals female-centered society in 9,000-year-old Neolithic city of Çatalhöyük
DNA from Çatalhöyük reveals a female-centered society with matrilineal lineage and rich burial rites for women over 9,000 years ago.
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Zohran Kwame Mamdani @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
My statement on Donald Trump's threat to deport me and his praise for Eric Adams, who the President "helped out" of legal accountability.
The President of the United States just threatened to have me arrested, stripped of my citizenship, put in a detention camp and deported. Not because I have broken any law but because I will refuse to let ICE terrorize our city.

His statements don’t just represent an attack on our democracy but an attempt to send a message to every New Yorker who refuses to hide in the shadows: if you speak up, they will come for you. We will not accept this intimidation.

That Trump included praise for Eric Adams in his authoritarian threats is unsurprising, but highlights the urgency of bringing an end to this Mayor’s time in City Hall. At the very moment when MAGA Republicans are attempting to destroy the social safety net, kick millions of New Yorkers off of healthcare and enrich their billionaire donors at the expense of working families, it is a scandal that Eric Adams echoes this President’s division, distraction and hate. 

Voters will resoundingly reject it in November.
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David Fedman @dfeds.bsky.social · 28/06/2025
In 1987, on the eve of the release of Studio Ghibli's Grave of the Fireflies, director Takahata Isao sat down for an interview with Nosaka Akiyuki, the author who penned the semi-autobiographical novel on which the film is based. A few highlights from their totally fascinating discussion:
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Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 26/06/2025
"The Mamdani campaign’s identity is the work of a tiny design co-op called Forge, and specifically its designer Aneesh Bhoopathy, formerly of Queens and now living in Philadelphia" — a little bit Bollywood, a little bit bodega :)
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mulboyne.bsky.social @mulboyne.bsky.social · 25/06/2025
The number of drinks vending machines in Japan fell from 2.47 mln in 2014 to 2.04mln in 2024, and 10% are still unprofitable. When a 500ml bottle of Coke goes to 200 yen, some 20-30% may become unprofitable. toyokeizai.net/articles/-/8...
toyokeizai.net
【限界の自販機】「コカ・コーラ」200円時代突入へ、今秋値上げで赤字自販機は2~3割に激増も。サントリーやダイドーも苦戦で、連携の動きは加速か
6月中旬、都内の気温が30度を超えた真夏日。汗だくになりながら道端を歩いていると、コカ・コーラの自動販売機が目にとまった。飲み物を買おうと近づくと、ミネラルウォーター「いろはす」(540ミリリットル)が14…
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Greg de St. Maurice @gdsm.bsky.social · 24/06/2025
Agricultural tariff schedule. There’s so much here. And yet, I’m left with so many questions.
trade.gov
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Greg de St. Maurice @gdsm.bsky.social · 22/06/2025
arstechnica.com
New dating for White Sands footprints confirms controversial theory
Results are consistent with two earlier studies dating the footprints to between 22,000 and 24,000 years ago.
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Greg de St. Maurice @gdsm.bsky.social · 22/06/2025
edition.cnn.com
Scientists reconstruct 10,500-year-old woman’s face using DNA | CNN
Researchers studying the remains of a prehistoric woman who lived around 10,500 years ago in what is now Belgium have produced a reconstruction of her face using ancient DNA.
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Greg de St. Maurice @gdsm.bsky.social · 13/06/2025
I saw this woman feeding stray dogs in Patan, Nepal. They knew who she was and all but one went over to her immediately. Seeing so many strays was sad, but they clearly weren’t afraid of people. I saw some in stores, hanging out. At night, some of them were sleeping in the middle of the street.
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Greg de St. Maurice @gdsm.bsky.social · 12/06/2025
W. David Marx compares AI generated art to polyester. From an aesthetic perspective, it’s already losing value just like the artificial fabric did. culture.ghost.io/genai-is-our...
culture.ghost.io
GenAI is Our Polyester
The best way to understand generative AI art and aesthetics is to consider how previous "synthetics" lost value in the long-run For the first half of the 20th century, white-collar workers wore busin...
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Greg de St. Maurice @gdsm.bsky.social · 09/06/2025
Nepal has been one discovery after another. This one is chhang: a fermented rice beverage low in alcohol. The taste varies from family to family. This one has a lactic acid flavor with vegetal and herbal notes.
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Greg de St. Maurice @gdsm.bsky.social · 28/05/2025
9 out of 10. Wasn’t confident about a few of them, though.
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Greg de St. Maurice @gdsm.bsky.social · 27/05/2025
Me: Carpets are dust and stain magnets and unhygienic. Dislike! Also me: There’s such a thing as a Yeti rocking chair?!? Want!
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Greg de St. Maurice @gdsm.bsky.social · 25/05/2025
Absurdly proud of the first garlic bulb I’ve grown. It’s so small because I had to harvest it early after spotting the allium leaf miner infestation on my balcony.
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Greg de St. Maurice @gdsm.bsky.social · 25/05/2025
tokyoweekender.com
Tourists Arrested After Thousands of Stolen Crabs Found in Suitcases
Thousands of protected Okayado-kari hermit crabs stuffed into suitcases seized from Chinese tourists in Amami.
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Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 11/04/2025
"The Food Action Awards support internat'l practitioners, community-led prjcts, collectives, + researchers advancing food practices that confront extractive food systems + climate breakdown. Via CLIMAVORE x Jameel @ Royal College of Art." £25,000! Apps due April 22! www.instagram.com/p/DIReq-QIcDz/
Screenshot of IG post: The CLIMAVORE x Jameel at RCA 2025 Food Action Awards jury is chaired by
Dani Burrows (CLIMAVORE x Jameel at RCA) and consists of:
>Cooking Sections,
>Cléa Daridan (Head of Arts and Culture, Community Jameel),
>Adrian Lahoud (Dean, School of Architecture, RCA),
>Boaventura Monjane (Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, PLAAS University of the Western Cape),
>Tracey McIntosh (Professor in Indigenous Studies, Wānanga o Waipapa, Faculty of Arts University of Auckland),
>Salma Tuqan (Director, Nottingham Contemporary)

The Food Action Awards support international practitioners, community-led projects, collectives, and researchers advancing food practices that confront extractive food systems and climate breakdown. Organised by CLIMAVORE x Jameel at RCA, the awards invite proposals that identify and analyse new human-made seasons—such as drought, soil exhaustion, or wetland disappearance—and their entanglement with pollution, monoculture, industrial farming, colonial legacies, and uneven geographies along the broken food chain.

We welcome proposals from farming, architecture, visual arts, food studies, environmental humanities and related fields. Projects may focus on infrastructural prototypes, field trials, landworker solidarity networks, BIPOC farming initiatives, queer ecologies, microclimatic environments and other strategies towards building alternatives that benefit both human and nonhuman nourishing.

Award Categories
—Research Action Award (£25,000): For practitioners with 5+ years of practice.
—Emerging Practice Award (£15,000): For recent RCA graduates (within the last 6 years).

Deadline: 22 April 2025 (Midnight GMT)
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Greg de St. Maurice @gdsm.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
denmarkification.com
Help Denmark Buy California – Because Why Not?
Buy it from Trump, the bigliest crowdfunding ever
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Greg de St. Maurice @gdsm.bsky.social · 19/03/2025
A fascinating deep dive into the Golden Age of Japanese pencils: “this sometimes inexplicable tendency of Japanese manufacturers to perfect what doesn't need to be perfected is a major reason why we're so passionate about our Japanese imports.”
notes.stlartsupply.com
The Golden Age of Japanese Pencils, 1952-1967
It was the summer of 1952, and the executives of Tombow Pencil were about to revolutionize the Japanese pencil industry—or, possibly, fall flat on their faces. Hachiro Ogawa, the son of founder Haruno...
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Costa Samaras @costasamaras.com · 20/02/2025
Musk Leaves 9/11 Heroes To Die
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Matt Zoller Seitz @mattzollerseitz.bsky.social · 19/02/2025
we are rapidly turning into the kind of small minded authoritarian country that is given a made-up name in an action thriller
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Mark Cuban @mcuban.bsky.social · 09/02/2025
This is the most relevant article to NIH and research cuts I’ve seen. Imagine if this was today , how many people would be saying “Why are we studying Gila Monsters and their impact on diabetes ? That’s wasted money !” globalnews.ca/news/9793403...
globalnews.ca
How a Canadian scientist and a venomous lizard helped pave the way for Ozempic - National | Globalnews.ca
In 1984, Dr. Daniel Drucker, an endocrinologist from the University of Toronto, discovered a hormone that helped pave the way for popular diabetes drugs such as Ozempic.
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Jason Kint @kint.bsky.social · 07/02/2025
Oh wow. Musk and his ally US Attorney Martin are going to get even more bent out of shape. But it won’t be discovered on Twitter due to its suppression of news links in posts. Here is the full report. And then please donate to ProPublica. #THANKYOUPRESS projects.propublica.org/elon-musk-do...
projects.propublica.org
Elon Musk’s Demolition Crew
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has been unleashed on federal agencies. ProPublica is attempting to document who is working with him and what they are doing.
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Dan Kaszeta FRHistS @dankaszeta.bsky.social · 06/02/2025
The Papua New Guinea Courier is in rare form.
Screenshot from "Letter from our correspondent" in "Papua New Guinea Courier"
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Greg de St. Maurice @gdsm.bsky.social · 05/02/2025
The world is a mess. As we try to improve it for everyone, it’s not bad to find things that bring you joy. Yeti finished a whole bag of iburigakko potato chips! Joy was had.
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Sally Jenkins @sallyjenx.bsky.social · 04/02/2025
This @washingtonpost.com story is so important that I'm gifting it. These people appear to be operating totally illegally and outside the Constitution -- and they know it. wapo.st/40LVERn
wapo.st
U.S. government officials privately warn Musk’s blitz appears illegal
The billionaire’s DOGE team has launched an all-out assault on federal agencies, triggering numerous legal objections.
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Dan Garisto @dangaristo.bsky.social · 03/02/2025
NEW: We obtained the directions NSF program officers are following to review all grants for compliance with the Trump EOs and the turmoil it has created in an agency mandated to broaden STEM participation. Our story: www.nature.com/articles/d41...
nature.com
Exclusive: how NSF is scouring research grants for violations of Trump’s orders
The US National Science Foundation has unfrozen grant funding, but it continues to scrutinize research projects, sowing turmoil.
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Greg de St. Maurice @gdsm.bsky.social · 04/02/2025
I do love how ekiben include regional specialties. For lunch I picked up this bento with bracken, iburigakko, and a good serving of shredded Hinaijidori over rice.
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JJWalsh @jjwalsh.bsky.social · 31/01/2025
Great to see international brands renovating traditional Japanese houses into shops in the Kyoto city center - too many beautiful old buildings like these are abandoned or knocked down in Japan every year But what a unique brand asset Also keeps artisans in work and Japanese culture preserved
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Pacific Standard 🚜🌻☂️ @pacstandardtw.bsky.social · 30/01/2025
Talk to me, Goose... venturebeat.com/programming-...
venturebeat.com
Jack Dorsey is back with Goose, a new, ultra-simple open-source AI agent-building platform from his startup Block
Goose’s capabilities are enhanced through Block’s collaboration with Anthropic, a leading AI safety and research company.
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Greg de St. Maurice @gdsm.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
“[specialty coffee shops] don’t just fail to engage with the communities they operate in—they actively contribute to their erosion. They push out families and erase culture, all while profiting off ideals of fairness and connection.”
mokhtaralkhanshali.com
The Spiritual Death of the Café
I’ll never forget the first time I sipped a cup of specialty coffee. It was an Ethiopia Natural-processed Yirgacheffe, and it tasted like blueberries—bright, sweet, and entirely unexpected. I couldn’t...
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Greg de St. Maurice @gdsm.bsky.social · 28/01/2025
Wow. www.nytimes.com/2025/01/27/t...
nytimes.com
What is DeepSeek? And How Is It Upending A.I.? (Gift Article)
How did a little-known Chinese start-up cause the markets and U.S. tech giants to quake? Here’s what to know.
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Nick Kapur @nickkapur.bsky.social · 25/01/2025
New research finds that the arrival of a Walmart makes communities poorer, even accounting for its lower prices www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...
theatlantic.com
The Walmart Effect
New research suggests that the company makes the communities it operates in poorer—even taking into account its famous low prices.
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Sabine Clarke @sabineclarke.bsky.social · 18/10/2024
Please circulate this great opportunity to do a PhD at Kew Gardens and the Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity at York! The student will look at the history of marginalised individuals who made knowledge about fungi in the early 20th century.
sites.google.com
LCAB PhD studentships - Currently recruiting
Women and biodiversity: gender and the making of the Kew Fungarium, 1900-1950
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Greg de St. Maurice @gdsm.bsky.social · 17/01/2025
Train ride home from Yokohama and I’m listening to African jams broadcast out of Cape Town. Really digging this Radio Garden site / app radio.garden/listen/pan-a...
radio.garden
Listen to Pan African Space Station from Cape Town live on Radio Garden
Explore live radio by rotating the globe.
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