iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

An exceptionally old exceptional rabbit at rest.

Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

The new low building on the right is, in fact, the entrance to the new high building on the left. One might reasonably conclude that the old building in the middle has been nominated for the 2026 “Nah, Fuck You, We Ain’t Selling” award.

Results, still to be determined, to be announced before the end of the year.

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Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Just wash your hands when you are done. We are all in this thing together.

Though you don’t need to be so expressive. Play it cool.

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Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Tangent Post: Because yesterday I had a follow-up colonoscopy, a minor cost and inconvenience in exchange for peace of mind, should anyone need a such a service from a fluent English speaking doctor in Tokyo. Here is ivy, cut back entirely last summer, once again reaching a third-floor balcony.

I will now insult you, friend and reader, by saying yes the ivy is a metaphor.* As if it were not obvious. It’s also just next to me and that makes it easy.

A pretty one that can not kill you, though cancer could.

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Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Because some mornings, at least, the only question should be baseball or hockey.

A glass of iced coffee, not at all artificially arranged and dangerously placed too close to a laptop, one Sunday morning in Koenji.

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Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

In a different life, the one without mistakes, I squandered nothing, and by the time of my death will have quietly given away a massive fortune built upon the discovery of a cacao bean that not only builds muscle but cures cancer. I also live here. www.realkagoshimaestate.jp/estate.php?n...

A kitchen in Kagoshima. Your friends and family have come to visit, as they do often, and you are glad for their presence. Someone has brought fresh peaches. In the evening you sip wine and enjoy being in the same room as the people you care most about. Everyone is healthy.

The front door to a home in Kagoshima. The day, for all, has been so pleasant the only disagreement is whether it is best called a porch or a veranda. A cat drinks fresh milk and falls back asleep.

A bedroom in Kagoshima. You have awoken to sunlight in your bedroom. You feel impossibly rested. As you put your feet on the floor you notice the faint aroma of fresh bread from another room.

A living room scene in Kagoshima. Music fills the scene. A friend you have not spoken to since childhood will call you soon. There will be memories shared and plans made.

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Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

The third of October. A Saturday in Koenji, Tokyo. My wife has made 湯たんぽ.

A hot water bottle awakens from its summer rest. The rest of the great comedies and dramas unfold.

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Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Under the Tracks. Koenji, Tokyo. The first Friday in October.

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Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

That my brother, whose life could have gone any number of ways, had you known him in high school, the kid who would skip school to surf, now has a beautiful life with a beautiful family in a beautiful place and still gets up to surf, fills with me with the best of selfless joys.

A picture from a family chat. The younger brother, at the beach early one morning. While everyone else is still asleep.

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Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Taking the long way to curry on the last Sunday in September. Tochigi Prefecture. 🎶 There will be damage There will be hell to pay … 🎶

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Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Nikko. 1,500 meters. The last Sunday in September. When the Weather Gods provide any number of metaphors to pour yourself into.

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Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

“When the grizzly bear appears, he lies/lays down on atheist and zealot. In the pitch-dark each of us waits for him in Glacier Park.”

You have forty-nine days between death and rebirth if you're a Buddhist.
Even the smallest soul could swim the English Channel in that time or climb, like a ten-month-old child, every step of the Washington Monument to travel across, up, down, over or through
—you won't know till you get there which to do.
He laid on me for a few seconds said Roscoe Black, who lived to tell about his skirmish with a grizzly bear in Glacier Park. He laid on me not doing anything. I could feel his heart beating against my heart.
Never mind lie and lay, the whole world confuses them. For Roscoe Black you might say all forty-nine days flew by.
I was raised on the Old Testament.
In it God talks to Moses, Noah, Samuel, and they answer.
People confer with angels. Certain animals converse with humans.
It's a simple world, full of crossovers.
Heaven's an airy Somewhere, and God has a nasty temper when provoked, but if there's a Hell, little is made of it.
No longtailed Devil, no eternal fire,
and no choosing what to come back as.
When the grizzly bear appears, he lies/lays down on atheist and zealot. In the pitch-dark each of us waits for him in Glacier Park.

Maxine Kumin’s “In the Park”

If anyone were ever curious the merits of majoring in both poetry and creative writing, you can remember passages like these three decades later. But it don’t pay for shit.

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Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

everything we do is explaining the sunrise

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Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

再開発反対！！高円寺らしさを守れ！！

A sign outside the Okinawan restaurant Dachibin in Koenji, imploring people to oppose redevelopment and protect the spirit-soul-character-essence-charm of Koenji.

You could go any number of ways with that らしさ.

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Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

I have managed to hold onto the last tattered strands of youthful ideals when it comes to food. That, assuming there is choice, never buy a meal that was not made to order. To preserve the relationship, the social component, in the exchange of money for food. "Yes, Sir. What can I get you?"

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Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Foreshadowing. Nikko. The last Sunday of summer.

“I have a foreboding.… I’m oppressed by a strange, dark foreboding. As though the loss of a loved one awaited me.”

“Are you married, Doctor? You have a family!”

“Not a soul. I’m alone, I haven’t even any friends. Tell me, madam, do you believe in forebodings?”

“Oh, yes, I do.”

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Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

“Give them the fields and the woods and the possibility of the world salvaged from the lords of profit. Stand them in the stream, head them upstream, rejoice as they learn to love this green space they live in, its sticks and leaves and then the silent, beautiful blossoms.”

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Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

The staring point guard for the 2026-2027 New York Knicks. Is still Jalen Brunson. Reaching for a spot of good luck between town and home on the last Saturday of summer. But, it seems, we’ll just have to make some of our own.

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Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Because we recently sent grapes to the realtor who helped us, four years ago already, he wished to return the thanks with a present of his own. Though not at home, we'd left the front door unlocked while out for the day. Similar scenes no doubt unfold around the world. Glad they do here as well.

The entrance to a home in Nikko. A bag with a box of sweets, to be eaten at a later, more proper, occasion.

A small text from the very kind real estate agent, who continues to go out of his way to help with things that no longer concern him at all

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Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

September 1st. All across Japan, children weigh themselves down with their backpacks as they make their way back to school. Just as one general manager, today celebrating her 52nd birthday, sleeps through her alarm and hurries off to give an early morning presentation. The more things change…

And somewhere Earth, Wind & Fire are already singing.

remember

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Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

And that’s that. The music stops and the drums go silent and you look around and then forward to whatever is next that is worth looking forward to.

The Koenji Awa-Odori. 2026.

Has finished.

You remember what happened and think of what might come next.

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Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

I once read that drums resonate so deeply with us, humans, as they are membranes stretched to cover the vessel inside, as our skin does for us. Also, Mos Burger, hook me up. Let’s talk.

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Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

I have been informed by my wife, currently scrolling over to get her hair done, that there is a matter of great importance this very day, happening at the Weather Shrine, and it may very well take precedence over any manner of Gods or Tradition.

Philly Cheesesteak.

The Gods have Spoken.

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Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

When you are hanging up laundry on a Sunday morning but hear part of the procession towards Hikawa Shrine, the Weather Shrine, hosting a festival of its own this weekend, though intertwined with the Awa-Odori.

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Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Checking the world on Sunday morning to see what day two of the Awa-Odori will bring.

Disclaimer: this photo was, in fact, taken on a Saturday afternoon, though still Koenji, still a festival day, and the image matches the sentiment of the main text. Nevertheless, if someone were to question if this photograph was, in fact, taken on a Sunday morning I would have to answer truthfully that it was not, potentially leading to a cascade of mistrust calling into question everything I have ever said.

A cat in a doorway in Koenji.

Brevity, that old soul of wit. To paraphrase.

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Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Those little practice sessions here and there before things begin. And the more raucous ones when it stops. Those are nice. After lunch and before drinks.

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Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

When the end-of-summer festival actually feels end-of-summery. Open your windows. Open your doors. Listen to what the community has to offer. Go be a part of it.

The 67th Koenji Awa-Odori.

The Weather Shrine.

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Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Her: Oh, cool. How do we use it? Me: Just spin it. The same as a regular one. Her: Spin it?? Do both sides vibrate? Me: Wait, what? It’s a ropeless jump rope. Her: Oh, never mind.

A ropeless jump rope. Batteries included. No vibrating parts.

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Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Tomorrow. And then again on Sunday. The Koenji Awa-Odori.

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Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

🎶 I get the news I need On the weather report 🎶

🎼
I’ve got nothing to do today but smile
🎼

Ah, fuck, scratch that. More work.

The Weather Shrine.
Koenji.
The last Friday in August.

Thoughts of death and time squandered. But those come every day.

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Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

The Koenji Awa-Odori. Is this weekend.

Just outside Chosenji Temple.

Also just outside Seiyu supermarket. My wife wanted that cheap tonkatsu they make.

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Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Oversharing from the Family Chat and adding to the chorus. From my (wonderful step) sister. Born and raised in Tennessee.

There was more. Because there always is.

Making you feel proud of where you came from. Proud of your accents. Proud of your stories. Proud of your roots. That you could come from humble beginnings and never need to apologize for it.

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Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

A slight tangent. Thus the quote-repost. All the recent changes, proposals, and reactions to them, have been a bit bewildering. I have checked but have been unable to find the following: what is the annual salary requirement for no longer caring what about happens to those who make less than you?

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Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

If it were yours, you would not have to keep the bachelor-pad stylings. But if you chose to, no harm there either. Residential in Setagaya. Tokyo. For viewing purposes only. (5740万円 or USD 361,000, if you were curious.) bukkenfan.jp/e/8965121644...

All glass and wood and storage space.

This will, for the time being, remain a needless-cynicism zone, it does nothing to prove one's intellect and it often brings down the room in a world in which the rooms have already been brought down. So we don't have to point out the blurring between residence and knick-knack secondhand shop aesthetics.

Damn. I fucked that up.

A roomy bath and shower space. The changing area divided by a curtain. You could probably get used to it.

The main living space. A large counter top for food prep. A three-burner stove. A workspace. Wood and brushed concrete.

A wraparound roof balcony. To be designed as you wish. Or just look at it and move on with your day.

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Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

The five Simpsons lines I’ve uttered most:

“I’m familiar with the works of Pablo Neruda.” (He had quite the renaissance in the 90s)

“Dad, knocking over a gravestone is bad luck.” — “Really? I heard good.” (Fine, two lines)

“Prayer, the last refuge of a scoundrel.”

“By the way, I’m aware of the irony of appearing on tv in order to decry it, so don’t bother pointing that out.” (Put a strike through tv and sub in social media.)

“The internet is more than a global pornography network.”

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Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

JR Nikko Station sure is one spiffy piece of Taisho architecture.

There is the Tobu Station and JR Station, neighboring each other.

This version, completed in 1912, is where you have to go to get a refund on your tickets in the event of an earthquake.

The entrance to JR Nikko Station. Rather quiet on a Sunday afternoon.

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Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Because sometimes, on a Sunday morning, sipping iced coffee, watching a baseball game from halfway round the globe, searching for alternative train routes back into the city because the earthquake overnight has led to cancellations, you hear the branches snap and you step outside.

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Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

And then, suddenly, a bit of clearing.

A backyard sky in Nikko.

August of 2026.

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Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

I would like it to be known that on this, the 22nd of August, in the year 2026, my wife put the heater on.

寒い

To love completely without complete understanding.

As they say.

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Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Next Saturday. This Hour. The Koenji Awa-Odori.

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Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Because once upon a time I used to take the long way home, passing over water with the ferry. Now crossing the Daiya River, looking out towards Nantai-San and Oku-Nikko. If you are partial to a sea clouds and heavy-handed metaphors that insult the reader’s ability to see the obvious.

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Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

we are doing alright for 75 and 71 time flew Waking up to a message from my uncle. I appreciate both the brevity and the decision to use the past tense.

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Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

The Koenji Awa-Odori. August 29 & 30.

And the less formal Friday evening show, starting at 18:00.

Not that Koenji is anything but less formal.

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Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Discovering, yesterday, that Outside TV has a 24 hour broadcast of Warren Miller TV will not aid my productivity. But it will afford me a bit (more) daydreaming on days when there are there are no Mets games. And, because timing …

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Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

The world is more this way than not. Even if it’s not always spelled out so explicitly.

A sincere nod and a smile can open many doors.

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Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Waking up to Osechi advertisements in the mailbox.

An advertisement for traditional New Year’s food.

The third week of August. 2026.

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Powderbum75 @powderbum75.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

🎶 All good things … 🎶 Because there comes a time in life when you have to turn off the lights and accept the inevitability of the travel case and the train. With free unlimited massage as compensation when it opens.

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