I sometimes have photos to share from a PauseTalk event, but this time, since Luis Mendo was in attendance, you get to see last night’s attendees (to Vol. 52) in illustrated form (above). We were a smaller group — a lucky “13″ — and the talk this time mostly revolved around questions of art in Japan. I also completely forgot to bring out the attendance sheet, but I was able to remember everyone who came (in part because of Luis’ illustration too), so below is the full list of those who attended.

As I mentioned recently, I think I’ll skip August — most people tend to be out of town on holidays, so it’s hard to get a good attendance — and so the next PauseTalk (Vol. 53) will probably take place September 5.

• Cathy Shive (Software Developer)
• David Steinberg (Game Developer/Musician)
• Dirk Stoop (Software Developer)
• Jean Snow (Talker)
• Jeffrey Chiedo (Gallerist/Dealer)
• Julie Forgues (Professor/Artist)
• Luis Mendo (Creative Director)
• Martin Holtkamp (Photographer)
• Michael Smith (Professor/Developer)
• Seiko (Hair Colorist)
• Samuel Cockeday (Photographer/Videographer)
• Vanessa Coxhead (Art Support)
• Yuko Sawamoto (Graphic Designer)

There’s a good chance you’ve already heard of Luis Mendo‘s The City Reporter series — I’ve shared the love on this site in the past, and have handed out a self-published edition of the Tokyo map at one of last year’s PauseTalks. Luis is coming back to Tokyo in early April for a couple of weeks, and the reason is because we want to work together on a new edition of the Tokyo report, one that will be more detailed and cover more of the city. We’re currently looking for sponsorship/funding on the project — mostly to help cover Luis’ expenses, but also to get it out there (print or digital). If you are someone who could help on this, do not hesitate to get in touch, we are open to all ideas and initatives.

In the meantime, do take a look at what Luis had done in the past with the other cities he’s visited, bringing to life lovely illustrated takes on each one.

Not that it’s really worth mentioning, but I updated my Cafe Pause mini-site, taking away the blog and simply keeping it as an info page — basically, somewhere to link to when I mention the cafe in a post (since the cafe’s own site is in Japanese). I used the lovely illustration Luis created for the Cafe Pause Poster series as the header.

And let me take this opportunity to clear up a few things, as a lot of people seem to be confused by my relationship with Cafe Pause. No, I am not the owner of the cafe, I’m just good friends with the owner and staff, which is why I’ve been able to produce events and host PauseTalk there. I was managing the gallery space, but don’t really do so anymore — although I’ll still help out if a foreigner wants to rent out the space for a show.

Every month or so, Warren Ellis puts out a post on his site in which he explains where you can find him on the web and elsewhere — sort of a monthly updated FAQ on what he’s up to — and I figure I should do one as well, since I’m sure that someone who has just arrived to my site for the first time might have trouble understanding what exactly I’m up to these days.

First off, this week saw the launch of my latest project, The Magaziner, a new site that will cover the growing push of magazine into the digital world — something I’ve been covering here for a couple of months now, but realized it made more sense to create a proper space for it. It is also accompanied by a Twitter account, which I’m now using for my magazine-related tweets, and has a Facebook fan page too.

Last month I also launched a new weekly music podcast I call Codex. It’s usually me playing a selection of 10 tracks, but I’ll have the occasional themed shows (like the next one), guest episodes (soon), and I’m also going to start adding what I call the Codex Coda, short guest mixes. You can download all previous episodes here and subscribe to an RSS feed — it’s in the iTunes Store too.

Radio OK FRED is the long-running music podcast series I do with Editions OK FRED‘s Yoshi Tsujimura and Audrey Fondecave, and although it’s been on yet another extended break (apologies for that), it still pops up every once in a while, and I’m hoping we’ll be able to make 1 or 2 new episodes this month.

Then there’s PauseTalk, my monthly creative talk event that takes place at Cafe Pause here in Ikebukuro. We’re on a bit of a break this month and the next (due to the holiday slowdown), and so the next edition will take place February 7. If you’ve never been there, it’s a very casual salon-like atmosphere, where a bunch of “creatives” basically get together and discuss topics that affect us, share projects, ask for advice, etc.

SNOW Magazine is the natural extension that was launched at the start of the year for all of the Tokyo/Japan-related art/design/culture coverage I used to do on this blog for many, many years. Although most of the content is provided by me, it does include the occasional guest columns and feature. SNOW also has a presence on Facebook and Twitter.

That means that this place, JeanSnow.net, is again a hub for all of my activities, so don’t come looking for Japan-related news, really. I’m on Twitter as well — where some say I actually tweet too much — and of course Facebook.

On the book side of things, while I’ll remind you that my previous contributions — Arcade Mania and Tokyolife — make for great holiday gifts, next up will be the release early next year of the fifth editions of The Rough Guides to Tokyo and Japan.

And although it doesn’t get updated as much as I’d like, my little gaming corner — simply called GAME — still features a host of games that I like a lot. I’ll try and get back to adding a few each month.

The PLAY series, where I would spin virtual discs at Cafe Pause every once in a while, is also on hiatus, and I think it has pretty much been taken over by Codex. I actually want to occasionally record some live Codex shows from the cafe.

You can also still catch my monthly design column for The Japan Times, “On Design,” which is published on the last Thursday of every month. It focuses on product design, and each one usually has me recommending five new items. I also contributed two items to the Japan Times‘ holiday gift guide piece, which was published today.

And even though I don’t really contribute anything in the written sense, I would say that I’m a “spiritual” contributor to Néojaponisme, David Marx‘s web journal that covers social and cultural aspects of Japan, which explains my editor-at-large title. Although the site has slowed down a bit this year in terms of new content, expect a bunch of great year-end reflections to appear later this month.

I’m also a proud member of Luis Mendo’s Goodfellas Network, and more specifically part of the GOOD Inc. Japan team. If you’re looking for a terrific group of people to work on a magazine-related project (print or digital), then please get in touch.

Last, but CERTAINLY not least, I continue my work as Executive Director of PechaKucha, where my role is mostly behind-the-scenes, but I also provide a public face through the PechaKucha Daily blog, and on Twitter. Local PKN organizers from around the world are the people I mostly deal with, but do feel free to get in touch if you have any questions regarding all things PechaKucha, whether it’s about holding a one-off PK event, starting a regular PKN series in your city, or anything else you may have on your mind. Since the organization is run as a non-profit, sponsorship enquiries and collaborations are also VERY welcome!

So there you have it, and if all of this wasn’t enough, do feel free to email me with any question you may have.

The SNOW Magazine Cafe flyer is now out in the wild. Again, big thanks to Hiyoko Imai for the wonderful design, based on Luis‘ original poster design.

I’ve been a bit quiet on the SNOW Magazine Cafe front, but yes, it’s still happening next month at Cafe Pause (August 1-30), and I’m very happy to reveal the poster for the event. It was designed by my GOOD Inc. compadre, Luis Mendo, and I absolutely love the illustration he came up with. The poster will appear at the entrance to to cafe, and a slightly different version will be used for the flyer (and big thank to Hiyoko Imai for the help with that).

I also have a very exciting new development regarding the event — and SNOW Magazine in general — that is going to be very cool. I’ll announce more soon, but for now let’s just say that it truly embraces the medium that is being celebrated at the exhibition.

Don’t you just hate posts that refer to the lack of posts on a blog? Oh well, such is what you must deal with on occasion, as your humble blogger feels the need to assure everyone that it “ain’t dead yet.”

I’m coming off what has a been quite a project — it’s no secret that I’m a contributor to the upcoming updates to The Rough Guide to Tokyo and Japan, set to come out in early 2011. I still have a bit of follow-up work to do, but the bulk of it was handed in the other day, and so suddenly I have a bit more breathing room.

Throughout this I continue with my work for PechaKucha — for those who don’t know, part of what I do there is update the PechaKucha Daily blog, but I do a lot of stuff on the administrative side of things as well. And without going into details, I can tell you that I’m lining up a lot of interesting things for PK this year, and I can’t wait to see it come to fruition, and be able to share it with everyone.

Part of this involves the fact that this year I’ve associated myself with Amsterdam-based art director Luis Mendo, a good friend I’ve mentioned on this blog a few times, and who I met just last year when he came to Japan for a 3-month “inspirational retreat.” Luis runs his own company, GOOD Inc., for which he pulls help from the Goodfellas Network, an amazing collection of potential collaborators who work in pretty much all fields. Not only am I a “Goodfella” — both professionally and personally, me thinks — but me, Luis, and graphic designer and artist Hiyoko Imai have formed a Japan branch of GOOD Inc. Our expertise is magazine-related production, so do get in touch if you are interested in working with us. And yes, we are currently developing something PK-related (which is how this paragraph came about).

Other than that, SNOW Magazine continues at a fine pace, and if you missed it, here’s a media kit we recently put together for the site — it includes details about advertising on the site, both pricing and placement, as well as a few reasons on why you might want to do so. I’m of course very excited about the upcoming “SNOW Magazine Cafe” event as well, and have already gotten lots of amazing contributions — imagine my surprise when the first email I received after announcing it came from The New York Times Magazine! If you’d like to participate, please get in touch. Oh, and there’s a great collaboration with the site Poolga coming too.

I think that’s enough for now. Yes, I’ve got my hands in other things — of course — and I’ll try to cover more of it here in the days/weeks to come. For all you Radio OK Fred fans, a bit of good news: me, Ay2, and Yoshi are getting together next Wednesday to record a new episode, so expect that to be online very soon (very likely on that day).

After I tweeted that I got some business cards made for SNOW Magazine, a few people asked to see what it looks like, and so here goes. Big thanks again to my fellow GOOD Inc. compatriot Luis Mendo for the image on the front, and font suggestion for my name on the back — it’s the font off which the SNOW logo was created, Los Niches.

And here we go with a reminder that this month’s edition of PauseTalk (Vol. 37) happens tonight (January 11) at Cafe Pause, with the usual start time of 20:00 — the cafe is reserved from 19:30, so feel free to come early. Here’s a link to the Facebook event page.

Max Hodges will be on hand again to add to the “PauseTalk Portraits” series — I’ll reveal tonight how it will eventually tie into this year’s PauseTalk 4th anniversary celebrations — and I’ll also have a few copies of a beautiful printed version of Luis Mendo’s illustrated Tokyo map to hand out.

I finally announced it in my big year-end post, and now’s the time to start revealing more details about my soon-to-launch web magazine, SNOW. I don’t want to give an official launch date — it sort of depends on when everything is ready to do go — but I can tell you that it will indeed be “soon.” In the meantime, I’ll be writing a few posts here over the coming week to explain what exactly this project is all about, why I did it, what I hope to achieve with, and what you can expect from it.

I’d like to start by revealing the lovely logo for it, designed by my good friend Luis Mendo, an Amsterdam-based art director whose work you can also see featured at the entrance of Cafe Pause right now.

Funny story about this design. What you see now is very close to the initial sketch that Luis first sent me — he produced a few more options, but I kept going back to this one, and one thing that was so strange was how the “O” matched exactly the very first hanko I had when I first came to Japan (I since had to change it because it wasn’t legal, and had to replace it with one that has “SNOW” written in English). Just a coincidence, I know, but one that touched me.

I announced it a month back, and now the fifth edition of the “Cafe Pause Poster Series” is finally up at the entrance of the cafe. Again, huge thanks to Luis for doing this — it’s a great way to kick off 2010 at Cafe Pause! You can better see the poster here, as well as an explanation of the concept behind it.

I’m very happy to be able to share the latest entry in my “Cafe Pause Poster Series” (#5), a contribution by Amsterdam-based art director Luis Mendo. You know about the Tokyo map he just produced for the next issue of Journal de Nîmes, and now here’s also his homage to the cafe. The concept revolves around the seats found in the cafe — there are 24 (all pictured), with 23 people shown, the idea being that the 24th customer is you!

The poster should occupy the entrance of the cafe sometime this week, but unfortunately won’t be ready for tomorrow night‘s PauseTalk (Vol. 35).

Not “my Tokyo,” but rather my friend Luis Mendo‘s take on the city we love to love. Earlier this year Luis stayed in Tokyo for a 3-month “inspirational retreat” — I posted about his terrific illustrated Tokyo diary back in April — and now here’s a sneak peak at a map he’s created for an upcoming issue of Journal de Nîmes, a newspaper for the denim store Tenue de Nîmes in Amsterdam. I’m very happy to see that Ikebukuro gets a mention, both for its Muji and Cafe Pause.