Pain Edition

3 May 2026

Fortunately, I am not referring to mental or physical pain, but pain au chocolat, which my partner baked from a frozen form that turned out really well. In this case, flakiness is a good thing.

Monday

I enjoyed This is a Gardening Show hosted by Zach Galifianakis, whom I’d seen in the Hangover movies and the Between Two Ferns series. I did attempt to spell his last name without looking it up and then found out that I was off by one letter. As someone who has experienced a misspelled last name and someone who grew up among a lot of Greek kids, I don’t wish to belabour this. I am not much of a gardener, but I do enjoy the fruits of others’ labour. These short episodes introducing some gardening fundamentals, include interviews with real experts as well as kids, hosted by the predictably unpredictable Zach G who sincerely says, “The future is agrarian.” I felt he hit a sweet spot of serious and silly. Apparently it was shot on Vancouver Island, where he now lives.

Tuesday

I saw something about drawing just with two tones. I’ve sort of been doing that with my Japanese series, but it has an interesting effect when using different colours. I might go with this for a while.

Wednesday

This is what I try to tell myself when I find myself doing things I would prefer not to.

Thursday

The thing I have loved about working in cultural organizations is that they seem to be populated by interesting people, who are there more out of passion than money. So years later, when I see them, though much water has passed under the bridge, we still feel sympatico. In addition to catching up on serious life events, we chatted about Wordle and the depiction of octopuses in the book and show, Remarkably Bright Creatures.

Friday

Happiness Falls is a fascinating novel by Angie Kim, full of surprises and interesting and moving thoughts.

Saturday

I have lived a privileged enough life that I have not felt the need to demonstrate my worth in material terms. Or maybe that is what this newsletter is for.

Sunday

A scene from my graphic memoir in progress Not Made in Japan about my experiences as a twenty-something studying marine ecology in southern Japan during the late 1980s. As I discussed last week, Nishihama was a Japanese with albinism. This incident happened when we were in a small town on our way to Okinawa. I drew the boys as the three monkeys, perhaps suggesting we made them wiser by disrupting their assumptions.

That was my week. I hope you had a good one, with a better one to come.