For me, this weekend is truly one where two of my worlds collide. Last night I had a special PechaKucha event as part of the Magazine Library exhibition in which I invited a few friends (Audrey Fondecave, Mike Abelson, Luis Mendo, Antonin Gaultier, and Ian Lynam) to do presentations on the topic of magazines and print culture. It was a far more intimate audience than what we’re used to seeing at our regular PechaKucha Nights, but in the end I think we had nice attentive crowd who really seemed to enjoy the presentations — and all of these presentations should be popping up on the PechaKucha site over the next week or so.

The second part of this double-header weekend happens tomorrow (Sunday, March 13), with PauseTalk Vol. 60 happening again at the same Magazine Library space (Hillside Terrace in Daikanyama), starting at 15:00. It’ll be the same kind of PauseTalk that I always do, so I do hope that regulars will still want to come despite the change in venue and time. Yes, I’m sure magazines and print culture will come up in our discussion, but I’m open — as always — to talk about whatever. And if you’re a fan of the fantastic Apartamento magazine, then you should stick around as the editor-in-chief and art director will both be there to give a talk from 17:00.

The photos included in this post were taken by Michael Holmes — who most of you will of course recognize as the regular PauseTalk and PechaKucha Night photographer. He was on hand to take some photos during the event, but did a few fun shots outside of the venue after with some of the people on hand. The group shot at the top includes a whole bunch of great peeps, and above you have Rumi Nagata of the Winged Wheel stationery shop, and below that is my board gaming brother (and AQ designer) Ryan Ruel.

I’m heading to Milan! Leaving in just a bit for a trip to the Milano Salone, where we’ll be hosting 4 special PechaKucha events at a temporary club space built by Heineken just for the Salone, designed by a group of up and coming designers we helped find through a series of special PechaKucha Nights in Sao Paulo, Tokyo, New York and Milan last year.

It should be a blast, we’ve got great lineups for each night, including a few PechaKucha Night organizers. The events are happening Tuesday through Friday (April 17-20), from 17:00 to 19:30. I’m afraid the first night (Tuesday) is invitation-only, but all other nights are open to all, so come on down and say hi! The venue is the Heineken Open Design Explorations club space, which is located in Milan’s Tortona area, at the intersection of via Bugatti and via Forcella.

Oh, and we have kept a few slots open (maybe just 1-2 left now I think), so if you are in Milan and have something really cool to present get in touch.

I know it’s been slow going these days here, and oh how I wish I could share with you some of the cool things we’re developing on the PechaKucha front, but that’ll have to wait for a bit. One fun little thing I did the other day was to put together a Tumblr blog to just share PechaKucha Night posters, as I thought it would be great to see them all together up on a wall like that. It only includes posters from 2012 (so for the past 2 and half months), and I’ll keep updating it with new ones I receive.

I know I haven’t put up the last PauseTalk participants list yet, but I’ll do that soon, and in the meantime, you can have a look at photos by Michael, up on Facebook.

I haven’t had time for much else, but I do hope to record a new episode of the Codex tonight, and over on Warren Ellis’ blog, you’ll find a few thoughts I shared with him on the topic of magazines.

Despite this gray and rainy weekend, it really does feel like warmer spring weather is just around the corner, which should mean my bike life will become active again — can’t wait.

A week or so ago I shared a couple of trailers for my friend Niko‘s upcoming TOKYO X CREATIVES video series, and here’s a third trailer, this time for the episode that will feature the gaming/clothing shop Meteor, located in Kichijoji. Niko did a presentation on the project at last week’s PechaKucha Night Vol. 89, and it should be up on the PK site within a week or two.

Here’s another 1-minute video for today, recorded at this past Thursday’s PechaKucha Night Vol. 89, before things started, as people were still arriving to the venue (SuperDeluxe) — it’s on YouTube too. You can quickly find all of my previous 1-minute videos here.

Here’s a fun pic that Michael Holmes took of me and Yuki at the recent PechaKucha Night Vol. 88 — there’s an entire gallery on Facebook.

I’ve produced a second video for Vimeo’s “1 Minute” group. This one, “Sound Board,” was recorded at last week’s PechaKucha Night Vol. 88 at SuperDeluxe. The first video was the one with my dog.

I mentioned the upcoming PechaKucha Global Cities Week event last week, and now we have some banners ads to share (also designed by Ian), in a variety of colors and sizes. If you’d like help spread the word on the event, you can download them here — and you can point to the front page of the PechaKucha website, which will get updated later today with more info.

And don’t forget that PechaKucha Night Vol. 88 happens this Wednesday at SuperDeluxe from 20:20 (doors open at 19:00).

We’ve just officially announced details for our upcoming PechaKucha Global Cities Week, and I really hope you will all be able to find a PechaKucha Night in your city that you can attend — and dig the great logo design by my main man Ian Lynam. The event in Tokyo will happen on Thursday, February 23 (note that it’s not on the regular Wednesday), and we’re currently on the hunt for some great presenters — if you’d like to take part with a topic that relates to our dear Tokyo, get in touch!

In the meantime, this month’s PechaKucha Night (Vol. 88) is happening next week (Wednesday, January 25, at SuperDeluxe), and it looks like it’s going to be a great night of presentations, with quite a few friends and fellow PauseTalkers participating. And speaking of PauseTalk, the first edition of 2012 is coming up, with Vol. 57 set for Monday, February 6.

I’ve made it a habit of kicking off the new year with a post that tries to address what I’m looking at in terms of the coming year, and I’ve used it over the past couple of years to announce some personal projects — both the launch of SNOW Magazine in 2010, and then the closure of the site in 2011. This year I don’t really have anything specific to announce yet, so this is going to be a short list of things that I have on my mind and wishes for 2012 — a state of my union, if you will.

The biggest change I think that I’ve experienced over the past year is that I’ve fully transitioned into working full-time on PechaKucha. My role as Executive Director sees me doing so many interesting things in relation to the PK community and network, and it’s one that I relish — I so enjoy the fact that I’m constantly in contact with people from all over the world who are producing PechaKucha Nights in our 460+ cities. 2012 is going to be an even bigger year for PK, with lots of cool things already in the works, and I can’t wait to share them with you all.

Something that also relates to PK is that I have it in my mind to organize something that would be gaming-related — to quench my thirst for doing something in that world, since it’s been quite a while since my days as a writer for Wired‘s Game|Life and the Arcade Mania book. I’m hoping to team up with some friends on this, and we’ll see how it goes. Expect it in the second half of the year though.

And speaking of Arcade Mania, there may be some developments with that this year, but nothing that I can talk about or promise for now — stay tuned.

On the SNOW Magazine front, when I closed the site I said that it was actually going on “hiatus,” and by that I meant that I would still love do something with that again, but that I just don’t feel like a regularly updated website works. I’d love to maybe do it as an irregular magazine on iPad, but since I want to keep this all indie and not have to depend on anyone (and can’t pay anyone), that means me trying to do it myself, which is a lot of work — the release of Mag+ for singles did give me hope that it might be doable. 

Codex, my music podcast, has been back for a few weeks now, and I look forward to getting back on a regular schedule with it this year, now that I’ve found a setup that works for me (for recording a show live while using Spotify as my music source). Over the next few days (maybe even today), I’ll release two episodes with my favorite music of the past year. And my other obsession, magazines, will continue to be covered over at The Magaziner. I wasn’t able to do a magazine-related event like I did in 2010 (the SNOW Magazine Cafe), but I hope that this year I can produce or participate in some cool new magazine projects.

PauseTalk also continues its run — 2012 will see it celebrate a 6th anniversary — and I have a few PT-related developments in mind as well, but I’d rather have them more concrete before I share them.

This past year has also seen more active — in a physical sense — than ever, both in terms of cycling (with the occasional bike commute to go work at the Klein Dytham architecture office in Ebisu) and with me and my wife’s mountain trekking lifestyle. On the bike front, I’ve slowed down a bit with the cold weather, and also because I’m really hankering to get a regular sized bike (not the foldable BD-1 that I’ve been using). As far as the mountains go, we’ve been adding bits and pieces to our equipment every month (since we can’t afford to spend much), and next up on our want list are sleeping bags and a tent. I also need to post photos from the last two snow treks we did over the past couple of week in Nagano.

The last thing that I’d like to see happen this year (at least for now) is that I would like to try and write some longer pieces, something a bit more thought-out than my regular posts. I don’t quite know what I’d like to write about — and hey, maybe I could try fiction for a change — but it’s something that I certainly have on my wishlist of things I want to do in 2012.

So there you have it, a few reflections as we transition from one year to another — here’s to an amazing 2012!

Let me start by thanking everyone who came out this past Monday for PauseTalk Vol. 56, the last one for the year. We were a larger group than in the past few months, and it was a really nice way to share some thoughts on the year that was, covering how various projects fared, and what our hopes are for 2012. As with recent PauseTalks, Michael Holmes — who is also taking photos for our PechaKucha Nights in Tokyo now — was there and snapping away, and so I’ll share those photos once they pop up (probably on Facebook, so join the PauseTalk FB page why don’t you).

Below, a partial (but pretty much complete) list of those who attended. Please note that January is a skip month, and so the next PauseTalk (Vol. 47) will happen on February 6.

• Anna Jasinksi (Illustrator/Graphic Designer)
• Christopher Lindstrom (Grad Student/Voiceover Performer)
• David Steinberg (Game Developer/Musician)
• Don Kratzer (Creative Director)
• Haruna Tsuda (Graphic Designer)
• Jean Snow (PauseTalker Emeritus)
• Lachlan McTaggart (Designer/Architecture Student)
• Megumi Nishikura (Filmmaker)
• Michael Holmes (Photographer)
• Mio Toyoda (Web/Graphic Designer)
• Niko Lanzuisi (Film Director)
• Raymond Ellis (Gallery Director/Artist)
• Said Karlsson (Journalist/Photographer/Game Producer)
• Seiko Yoshida (Hair Color Specialist)
• Shunya Sugawata (Product Designer)
• Taylor Cass Stevenson (Visual Artist)
• Tom Coombs (User Experience Consultant)
• Walter Gethrey Peach (Video Artist/Creative Director)
• Weaw J. (Peace Studies)

Update: And here are the photos from the evening.

Just a reminder to everyone that the two event series that I’m involved in will have their final edition of the year over the coming week. First up, this Wednesday (November 30) is PechaKucha Night Vol. 87 at SuperDeluxe (doors open at 19:00, presentations start at 20:20), and it will indeed be the final PKN of the year here in Tokyo since December is always a skip month (because of the holidays). Also, I should maybe mention that my wife will be one of the presenters.

Then, this coming Monday (December 5) sees PauseTalk Vol. 56 at Cafe Pause (from 20:00, although people usually start showing up from 19:30). It’s also the last one of the year, since I always skip January for the same reason (holidays), and so hope to see many of you there — consider it a creative bonnenkai (year-end party).

First off, let me start by thanking everyone who came out for last Wednesday’s PechaKucha Night Vol. 85. It was a great turnout and I think a nice collection of presentations, but even more important for me, it was the first regular PKN we do without my longtime colleague Tomoko Kagawa, who recently left the organization. So it was me and my colleague Yuki Takai behind the deck, and although I think everything went smoothly on the screen, I can tell you that there was a lot of hectic work going on in the back, as we continued to receive last-minute images for a few of the participants (who were coming from the World Congress of Architecture). But live and learn, and I think all the battle scars will mean that nothing can phase us from now on. Apologies also to anyone who wanted to chat, but that I had to turn away because of how busy things got — it shouldn’t be like this in the future, so do feel free to come and say hi.

Also, let me remind you all that this month’s PauseTalk (Vol. 54) is this Monday (October 3), at Cafe Pause as always, with the official session starting at 20:00 — feel free to come early, as a few people usually do.

I just posted about tomorrow’s PKN Vol. 85, but I can now confirm that u+uco — see the video above — will also be participating with a special performance at around 22:30. 

So yes, time again to remind everyone that the next PauseTalk (Vol. 54) is coming up, set for this coming Monday (October 3) at Cafe Pause in Ikebukuro, with the usual start time of 20:00. As I wrote for Vol. 53, we had a terrific night, so hoping this next one will be just as good.

Also, PechaKucha Night in Tokyo Vol. 85 is happening tomorrow (September 28) — following our annual summer break — at SuperDeluxe in Roppongi. Doors open at 19:00, presentations start at 20:20, and entry is 1000 yen. You’ll find the list of presenters on the official event page, but we’re also expecting a few extras, courtesy of this week’s World Congress of Architecture.

You’ll find PauseTalk on Facebook here, and there’s a Twitter feed too.