11.24, 12.24 AND 01.25 FINDS

11.24, 12.24 and 01.25 finds is finally here! this is not what i planned, but it is what happened.

i was away for two of these three months. things got out of hand and i ended up with my longest list.

BOOKS

1. i read the first 150 pages of butter by asako yuzuki on the day i started it. the rest of 300 in the following 3 weeks because I was also touring some parts of japan. i loved it and i recommend it! ps: i planned to read it in japan and i’m glad i did.

not me noticing the echire store in tokyo for the first time and considering buying sticks of hokkaido butter lol.

2. the mirai-chan book by kawashima kotori was republished.

this little girl and her pictures are the most searched post on my blog. ever!

MANGA

3. i read torpe de nascimento by yaro abe. it is about his childhood in shikoku. wonderful, i loved it!

4. and then, i bought another book by yaro abe, his first. i read it in french. it was called l’etrange volupte aurriculaire.

5. i read bordados by marjane satrapi before, but this time was in portuguese.

6. i re-read the first 2 volumes of l’arabe du futur by riad satouff. this time, in portuguese.

MAGAZINES

7. i read both the autumn and the winter issues of konfekt. i liked the article on okinawan longevity.

8. i read the last 3 issues of british vogue. is it just me or has the quality gone down?

9. i read monocle no. 176. i liked the articles about the mioveni dacia factory and about the prehistoric bread recipe.

MUSIC

10. my new favourites, catriel and paco amoroso, were in porto in december. and i was in kyoto at the time. i haven’t been this disappointed in a long time…

i consoled myself by looping this song paquito did with bizarrap.

they did a great intro video for their album.

11. i liked this beth gibbons concert held in a parisian library.

12. xg is a japanese group with a new album called awe. my favourite track on it is howling. while i was in japan, spotify was targeting me with ads about their upcoming tour.

13. tom barman is talking about the technical side of his career.

the end of the year makes me try to shorten my neverending lists. so i’ve listened to a few albums i had saved.

14. i liked ascenseur pour l’échafaud by miles davis, there’s definitely a place in my life for it.

15. the same goes for chet baker in tokyo, an older favourite.

16. also old favourites are superclean, volume I and II by the marias.

17. the kids unburied this old song, maps by the yeah yeah yeahs. the intro sounds a lot like bloc party. i wonder who did it first.

18. i don’t remember where i found this album, percorrer em nos by avua, but it’s good.

19. same goes for pra gente acordar by gilsons.

20. has anybody escaped lola young’s new anthem, messy? we needed it!

21. got7 is currently making a comeback. i can’t stop listening to this banger!

22. i’ve been watching jennie since she was featured in gd’s videos, over 10 years ago.

i’m not a fan of her blackpink stuff, but i like this new single off her solo album.

23. i saw the cure live in vienna in 2007. 3h of bliss, probably the best concert ever.

watch them below, 17 years later, as amazing as ever!

24. i might’ve shared this before. anyway, i still like wish i could by galine!

25. do you get music recs from insta? you should! it’s where i found god save the queens by vienna vienna.

26. doechii has just gotten the grammy for the best rap album. so far, i’ve only saved denial is a river to my playlist.

27. last, but not least, the recent nirvana reunion had kurt replaced by 4 women, one better than the other. fire!

FILMS

28. i went to like babygirl, but there was no way…

the storyline is not engaging enough and kidman is not as amazing as they say. but harris dickinson is good! i’ll watch out for him. i did like inxs and george michael, but the music and soundtrack were a bit distracting. oh, i noticed esther mcgregor, ewan’s daughter. i’ll watch out for her, too.

29. almodovar’s latest, the room next door, was visually very nice. but the storyline was rather meh. funnily, young tilda is played by esther mcgregor, whom i’ve just mentioned.

the batalha center in porto is having a big almodovar retrospective starting in march. i can’t wait!

SHOWS

30. eduardo guerrero is probably the greatest flamenco bailaor of our time. i was planning to go see him somewhere in spain, but i was lucky: he came to porto and took my breath away. i plan to make this the first of many!

EXHIBITIONS

31. i went to oita to the shigeru bam designed opam museum. back in december, they had a dali show and an exhibition dedicated to a living treasure artisan who worked in bamboo. his name is shounsai ikuno. mind blown!

32. by chance, we went to the okura museum of art. they had an incredible kimono exhibition. i bought the catalogue: from “autumn haze” to “beyond the field” – celebrating living national treasure fukumi shimura’s 100th birthday.

33. i wento the the kaikaikiki gallery twice. i caught aya takano‘s show before we left tokyo. i love her. i’ve loved her stuff since i first saw her in barcelona back in 2007.

34. we went back to kaikaikiki in january, for a series of takashi murakami prints and sculptures.

35. same goes for the ukiyo-e museum in tokyo, ota memorial museum of art. they change the show every month, so we saw hiroshige blue in december.

36. and edo gourmet dishes in january. this museum is a great place if you are into japanese woodblock prints.

37. i wasn’t sure where to put my visit to mot by yanagisawa takahiko. exhibition, music or architecture? i’ll put it here. we saw the ryuichi sakamoto exhibition. pros? london fog by the wonderful nakaya fujiko, a personal favourite. cons? the exhibition was conceived disastrously, people are crowded in the dark and it’s quite impossible to enjoy the show. i saw the museum has been enforcing some rules in an attempt to improve the situation. if you go, do it when it’s not crowded.

38. by chance, we went to a fashion exhibition in kumamoto contemporary art museum. i was flabbergasted to be nearly alone in there with amazing comme des garcons pieces, etc. from the kyoto costume institute and the plexi crab houses created by another favourite artist, aki inomata.

39. the comico art museum is a private museum located in yufu. they only have new japanese artists: murakami, kusama, yoshitomo nara and nawa kohei.

40. we went to the museum of oriental ceramics in osaka in a hurry. the building, by kenzo tange, is full of japanese and korean gems.

41. near our kyoto hotel, i found the namikawa cloisonne museum of kyoto. the pieces are exhibited in a traditional house that belongs to the namikawas. the house has a garden and a pond with koy fish in the back.

42. i discovered the cool work of ruth asawa in david zwirner gallery in hong kong. i loved it!

43. when i heard there was a james turrell show at gagosian le bourget, i started thinking how i could see it. well, since we had an 8 hour layover, we took an uber from cdg. the driver was so nice, he visited the show with us and then took us back to the airport. i love turrell, if you can, go see it!

ARCHITECTURE

when i travel, my list alsways includes buildings i want to see.

44. in shikoku, we stopped for 2 nights in the small town of yusuhara. it might be small, but they have 6 kengo kuma buildings: the hotel we stayed in, a market place, another hotel, the city hall, a gallery and the library. the town has a little over 3,000 people. it was a trip to be there. i spent an afternoon in the library. check insta for pictures and more details.

45. also in yusuhara, we visited a wooden theatre called yusuhara-za, which inspired kengo kuma in his work. the building is open and unmanned, for everyone interested to visit.

46. on our way from fukuoka to nagasaki, we stopped in takeo onsen. there, we visited the unbelievable takeo city library and the adjacent kids library. the big library includes a tsutaya and a starbucks. the children’s library has a panckae place. ah!

47. when we went to the kaikaikiki gallery in minato, we also visited the tokyo metropolitan central library.

48. another cool library was the big musashino palace. the building is modern and it includes many amenities that help gather the community. if you go to the cafe, make sure to order the best pudding ever.

49. i visited it last year for the first time, but i went back. the waseda international house of literature (the haruki murakami library) is a small library by kengo kuma, located inside the waseda campus. they have jazz to listen to, murakami’s books in all the languages and a cute little cafe.

50. i must mention the cool former prison herzog and de meuron transformed into a cultural centre in hong kong. tai kwun has galleries, cafes, an open air amphitheater, etc. don’t miss it!

51. i forgot to mention the nakanoshima children’s book forest in osaka, by tadao ando. the architect was touring japan to hold lectures, i saw the poster. last year, i saw the twin library in kobe. i am so envious of the children who get to enjoy these wonderful places!

52. when we were in takamatsu, one of the few things on my list was kagawa prefectural government office east building by kenzo tange. i couldn’t leave. i loved it!

53. in order to keep tokyo safe from floods, in saitama, there is a thing called the metropolitan area outer underground discharge channel. it’s designed to collect the extra volume of water in case of danger. i loved that visit!

54. by chance, i came across a sou fujimoto exhibition somewhere in fukuoka. nearby, he had made a temporary hall for the daizafu tanmangu temple that is being redone. very cool!

55. we went to uji for the first time and couldn’t miss the cool brutalist keihan uji station by hiroyuki wakabayashi. i loved it!

56. my favourite building in hong kong was the wonderful m+ museum by herzog and de meuron. if you visit, don’t miss the garden on the 3rd floor. the views are absolutely worth it.