Let me tell you about my favorite spot in all Korea. I won't name it, since I don't want to take the blame when, for other reasons, it inevitably gets… Read the rest of the article: Korean pop music before "K-pop": three six-hour mixes of 70s and 80s hits

We've already seen, in the pages of Boing Boing, several unions of technology and the aesthetics of Dutch neoplasticist painter Piet Mondrian. We've seen a Mondrian PC, a kinda-sorta Mondrian… Read the rest of the article: Japanese programmer-philosopher makes digital Mondrians — in 1964

These programs examine the elements on the strength of which these megacities first became and continue to thrive as megacities.

Has anything interesting appeared on commercial radio since Loveline?

In his book The Architecture of Happiness, de Botton asks why we fetishize old buildings rather than building new ones even better suited to our age.

Whenever I travel to a new city, I immediately get to work on a mental map of its coffee shops. I do this in part because they provide the points… Read the rest of the article: "Starbucks Versus the Traveler": a photo-audio essay on the ubiquity of the green mermaid

Even before I moved to Los Angeles, I set about finding ways to understand it. I knew the city wouldn't make it easy for me, but at least I had… Read the rest of the article: The City in Cinema videos reveal the Los Angeles futures of "Blade Runner," "Strange Days," "Southland Tales," and more

If you have any interest at all in writing produced by the cultural exchange — or culture clash, if you prefer — between the West and Asia, you might consider… Read the rest of the article: Read chapter one of "Funereal", an upcoming novel of suicide, plastic surgery, and extreme therapy in Korea

Foreign residents of Tokyo: have you ever run into Yan-san? If so, did you buy him a drink? I've heard that described as standard practice for anyone who began their… Read the rest of the article: "Let's Learn Japanese": the 1984 language-teaching video series still holds up

I suppose one shouldn't make light of the dying, but Radio Shack, as moribund a nationwide retailer as they come, pretty much asks for it. Their intended aping of Apple… Read the rest of the article: Radio Shack's happier days, when it sold $2495 cellphones

Though I appreciate a well-made physical book, I don't collect the things aggressively as some do. Yet I can't suppress my desire to possess certain, highly specific volumes. At the… Read the rest of the article: "God Hates Japan": the Douglas Coupland novel that may never appear in English

Los Angeles is beautiful — there, I've stirred up a controversy already. But photographer Noé Montes has already out done me by making that claim not just in words but… Read the rest of the article: Photographer Noé Montes shoots Los Angeles like you've never seen it

I've lamented the pathetic state of American vending machine culture versus the advanced state of Japan's, but as with anything else in this giant and often complacent country, you've got… Read the rest of the article: Seattle's possibly-haunted "Mystery Coke Machine"

Recording my podcast Notebook on Cities and Culture's Korea Tour last summer, I had some of the most fun hanging out with Chad Kirton, also known as DJ Chad, also… Read the rest of the article: How Chad Kirton went from a kid in Saskatchewan to a rapper in Korea

I have only two major urban regrets: that I'll never get to see Portsmouth's Tricorn Centre, and that I'll never get to see Hong Kong's Kowloon Walled City. These structures,… Read the rest of the article: Kowloon Walled City was the densest—and most interesting?—place on Earth

As a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle enthusiast in childhood and a Los Angeles rapid transit enthusiast in adulthood, I should, by all rights, love Operation Blue Line, a ten-minute 1990… Read the rest of the article: The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles save Los Angeles rail transit in "Operation Blue Line" (1990)

"Ruby: The Adventures of a Galactic Gumshoe" is free for one week only.

For more than seven years now, I've hosted and produced long-form interview podcasts. On Notebook on Cities and Culture, which I began a little over three years ago, I've taken… Read the rest of the article: 40+ hour podcast interview tour of South Korea

For years, I've followed Craig Mod, a designer and essayist who splits his time between New York and Tokyo and who thinks about such subjects as photography, air travel, Haruki… Read the rest of the article: Here's the rare American publisher who understands the printed book