I have a new piece up on CNNGo, covering the “performance art” izakaya Kagaya in Shimbashi. Big thanks to my Rough Guides colleague Simon Richmond for introducing me to the spot — we had a great night of eating and drinking there a month back, which some of you may remember as a string of tweets I did.

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.

Where’s my PauseTalk participants list? Why isn’t there any new content on SNOW Magazine today? What the hell is up with Radio OK Fred? Life (and a cold) and work have definitely gotten in the way of things of late. No need to worry though, good things come to those who wait (and the wait won’t be long, I promise).

Just a reminder that tonight (March 8) is this month’s edition of PauseTalk (Vol. 38) at Cafe Pause, with a start time of 20:00. As always, the cafe is reserved from 19:30, so feel free to show up a bit early. Have been suffering through a cold this past weekend and still have a bit of a cough, so come on down and chime in, as I hope to do less talking and more listening tonight.

Looking for something to read this weekend? You could definitely do worse than catching up on this week’s new articles on SNOW Magazine — yes, despite my trip to Boston, I kept updates to the site timely. I don’t usually post anything during the weekend, but I’ve just added the first column by Sophie Knight, “My Yamanote Romance,” a long essay on a cycling tour of the famous train line.

To stay up to date, subscribe to the RSS feed, or follow the magazine on Twitter or Facebook.

I have a new piece up on CNNGo — “Wanted: The top 10 ultimate travel apps for iPad.” I think the title says it all.

Here I am, acting all serious and shit at the “control center” this past Saturday for the big “Global PechaKucha Night for Haiti” — in the foreground you see the back of the head of Mark Dytham, and my PechaKucha colleague Tomoko. The photo is courtesy of Arvin Panwar — more photos from that night here.

Where have I been? Currently in Boston — a sort of last-minute research trip for my wife, with me along for the ride. This came off the heels of a rather hectic month of preparations for the “PechaKucha for Haiti” event that was held this past Saturday. Still been busy here, mostly working from the hotel room, mixed with the worst case of jetlag I’ve ever experienced I think (which has been good in terms of catching up on Olympic coverage in the middle of the night). Oh well.

Will be back in Tokyo on Monday, which was a bit too tight for a regular PauseTalk edition (first Monday), which explains why it was pushed back a week — see all you PauseTalkers on the 8th!

Just a note to let everyone know about the global “PechaKucha for Haiti” event happening today. You’ll be able to watch a live stream of the entire thing from the front page of the PechaKucha website. There are also local events happening around the world — the Tokyo one is at SuperDeluxe, doors open at 16:20, and the entire global event kicks off at 17:00.

Tokyo Fun Party returns to the event scene next month with the launch a new party series called HARD.

Tokyo Fun Party returns to the event scene next month with the launch a new party series called HARD.

SNOW Magazine" />
<p><a href="http://tokyofunparty.com/" target="_blank">Tokyo Fun Party</a> returns to the event scene next month with the launch a new party series called <a href="http://tokyofunparty.com/?p=287" target="_blank">HARD</a>.</p>
<p><img src="http://snow-mag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/100218_tfp_hard_01.jpg" width="600" height="424" alt="HARD Vol. 1" /></p>
<p><a href="http://tokyofunparty.com/" target="_blank">Tokyo Fun Party</a> returns to the event scene next month with the launch a new party series called <a href="http://tokyofunparty.com/?p=287" target="_blank">HARD</a>.</p>
SNOW Magazine" />

Time again for a round-up of recent articles to appear on SNOW Magazine, and also to welcome Alastair Townsend (BAKOKO) as a new contributor to the site — I’m now posting the terrific “A Few Things” series of posts he’s been doing on his blog, about contrasting housing-related issues between Japan and the West.

I’ll be debuting a few new columns this week too — expect Spoon & Tamago’s Johnny Strategy first piece to go up later today. And here’s a reminder that you can subscribe to an RSS feed, or follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

• HARD Vol. 1
• Tokyo to Osaka on a Fixie
• Comploo
• MD.net Clinic AKASAKA
• Tokyo Art Beat iPhone App
• Tokyo Sanpo
• Teaser Trailer for The Borrowers
• Running the Yamanote Line
• Polyblack
• Karis
• Moji Salvage 20
• Suzuki Affice
• Kura Space
• Tire Fashion from Seal
• Pattern Pattern 18
• Design.nl Covers TDW
• Sacred Architecture: The Myojin Sento

Here’s another round-up of the last few days of articles to appear on SNOW Magazine. First I’d like to highlight the three guest columns that appeared this week: Bianca Beuttel returns to the package design series she used to contribute to PingMag (starting with Xylish gum packaging), Audrey Fondecave provides a second column to make sure everyone knows about Abake and their open studio sessions, and we ended the week with Hiyoko Imai’s first contribution in what she’s calling her “SNOW Characters” series.

Below, the news items from the last few days. Here’s also a reminder that you can subscribe to the site’s RSS feed, follow on Twitter, and become a fan on Facebook.

• Groovisions Interviewed
• Tokyo Gallery Geography
• Green Marker
• Kilico
• Rainbow Church
• Takayuki Fukatsu’s Photo Apps Get Awarded
• Wonderwall 10th Anniversary Collaboration
• Corona by Nendo
• SWEETS ROOM
• Drainspotting Online
• TPUTH
• Madrix
• The Life and Times of Oswald Cooper in Idea Magazine
• Lodge
• Hammock
• Moon Otoko
• Izmojuki Machinaries
• Nonchan’s House
• Tamagawa Takashimaya S+C Marronnier Court
• Frisk Built QR Code
• Artalking #6: How Dead Is the Book?
• iPad Stencil for Omnigraffle
• A Few Things the West Could Teach Japan About Housing
• Bad Signs for Abercrombie & Fitch in Japan
• MicroWorks in Stockholm

Oh, don’t you just love these PauseTalk updates? So after having to cancel this month’s edition I said that it would be back in March, but unfortunately, again, it won’t happen on the first Monday (which would be March 1) because it looks like I’ll be in China at the end of this month and not back in time. BUT, this just means that it will be happening the following Monday, March 8. So circle your calendar, and see you then!

So what’s the latest on SNOW? I guess two new developments art that I added a dedicated Twitter feed, and also created a Facebook fan page. The Twitter feed is mostly just automated with new articles from the site — because some people actually prefer that over RSS feeds these days — but I do keep an eye on it, and will reply to questions and comments. The Facebook page is just another way of putting the site out there, and should be a good way of informing members of SNOW-related events as they happen.

Regular content updates have also continued over the past week, with a few new guest columns and my regular news items. Here’s a list of what you may have missed over the past few days.

• One Coin Comics
• Wired’s Personalized QR Codes
• Annapurna Moonrise
• Lone Expression: Tommy Guerrero
• Asato Z
• COLORS
• Shinjuku Disco
• Labyrinth of Woods
• Koukotsu
• Japan Pan Am
• BQLSI STAR LASER
• Mountain House by Atelier Bow-Wow
• Measuring Tape Toilet Paper
• Kuri
• No Man’s Land
• The 69th Tokyo International Gift Show
• Memories of Island Life: Ogasawara, 1992
• A House Made of Two
• 24-Hour Subway in Tokyo
• Tiltshift Generator for iPad
• Hair Club for Men: Style #326
• Droog Town House
• G-Tokyo 2010
• First Trailer for Kitano’s Outrage
• JAGDA 2010 Calendar for iPhone

Some very good news: Arcade Mania is getting a 3rd print run! Huge thanks to everyone who has picked up the book so far — hoping you’ve enjoyed it — and here’s an invitation to everyone who hasn’t done so yet. The book is available in bookstores, but of course on Amazons worldwide too (Amazon US, Amazon Japan).

If you follow my Twitter feed, then you may have noticed all of the tweeting I was doing while in Kyoto this past weekend, and more importantly, adding the @hitotoki tag to all of those tweets. The reason is that I’m currently helping with the beta testing of the soon-to-relaunch Hitotoki, and as you can see, it now revolves around a strong Twitter component. I’ll just leave it at that for now, but if you want to be alerted when the site relaunches, you can sign up on the site, and follow them on Twitter as well.

So here we are, almost a week since the launch of SNOW Magazine. How have things been? Well, it was a bit of a rough ride for the first couple of days, mostly because I wasn’t happy with the way I had set up the domain (a lot of people will recall that you could only see “http://snow-mag.com” in the URL bar no matter the post, because I was just using forwarding/masking), and so I struggled a bit with this, but I can’t thank enough the man who always comes to my rescue when it comes to web-related problems, Patrick Benny (he’s helped countless times on this site as well). Do check out Patrick’s first column for SNOW as well, covering the launch of Yasuharu Konishi’s new label, READYMADE V.I.C.

So I think things should be running relatively smoothly from here on out, although do continue sending feedback if you encounter weirdness. The feed should also be working fine, so please subscribe to make sure not to miss any new content.

Also, here’s a quick list of the recent posts that went up on the site, in case you missed anything.

• Painting the Holy Mountain: Kiyoto Maruyama
• Interview with Tokachi Tsuchiya
• Jalan’s Latest Commercial
• READYMADE V.I.C.
• iPad in Japan
• Lotta
• TAB Needs Your Help
• Better Luck Next Tie
• House in Obama
• 51 Japanese Characters for iPhone
• The Unlikely Restaurater

I’m afraid I have some bad news for PauseTalk in February. I was planning on having it happen on the 8 (because I’m currently in Kyoto and will only be back tomorrow night), but just found out from the manager at Cafe Pause that there’s an event booked there, so no go. Since I don’t want to have it in the middle of the month, we’ll just have to wait until March for the next edition. Apologies to everyone who was planning on attending.

This week’s episode of Radio OK Fred (20) is the “Dark” episode, something to listen to during these cold winter months. Below, a list of the tracks played as well as a link to download the episode — or subscribe to the feed.

Radio OK Fred 20 (41MB)

1. Tricky – “Broken Homes”
2. Siouxsie and the Banshees – “Christine”
3. Misfits – “Where Eagles Dare”
4. Rick White – “Darkland”
5. Eric’s Trip – “Hate Song”
6. Louis Prima – “That Old Black Magic”
7. Curtis Mayfield – “Right on for the Darkness”
8. The Gossip – “Dark Lines”
9. The White Stripes – “Death Letter”
10. The Velvet Underground – “The Black Angel’s Death Song”
11. Yo La Tengo – “Black Flowers”
12. Joy Division – “Love Will Tear Us Apart”

And we have ignition. SNOW Magazine is launched: snow-mag.com. I’ll post more later, but wanted to just put this out there, and invite everyone to take a look. Subscribe to the feed too!

And now we get to the best of all these teasers for my SNOW web magazine (see parts one, two, and three), looking at the aspect of this project that really has me the most excited, and that’s the guest columns. As I talked about earlier, it was always my intention to make this magazine something that was more than just a re-purposed venue for my editorial coverage. I really want SNOW to act as a voice for a lot of the interesting people that I’ve come to know over my years as a Tokyo resident, and I’m doing that with the inclusion of guest columns.

The idea here was to get all of these people to contribute short monthly columns (or posts, or articles, or whatever you want to call them) covering topics that are near and dear to each of them. Some of these will be themed columns, some will be all over the place, some will be visual, I just promise that it will be a fun collection of content that I think needs to be shared.

Below, all of the people who have agreed to contribute to the site. Some have already determined exactly what they’ll be covering (and have even already sent me their first column), others are still not sure and we need to discuss things more, but you’ll be seeing their contributions on the site in the near future.

• Andrew Lee: Currently editor at Kodansha International, but also the art director of a little book I was involved with called Arcade Mania.
• Alin Huma: Photographer, zine maker, barista, and the man you need to talk to if you want to get a custom bike built for you.
• Audrey Fondecave: Artist, co-founder of OK Fred magazine, and of course my co-host for Radio OK Fred.
• Bianca Beuttel: Kyoto-based designer and essayist who will be continuing her coverage of Japanese package design, something she did brilliantly at PingMag.
• Claire Tanaka: Writer and translator based in Tokushima, whose byline you probably remember from PingMag and PingMag MAKE.
• David Marx: The man, the myth, founder of Néojaponisme, and currently Tokyo city editor at CNNGo.
• Hiroshi Egaitsu: Professor, thinker, freelance writer, and a man who has made you shake your ass at many a club event.
• Hiyoko Imai: Amsterdam-based designer and illustrator, and also a partner in a new project I’m involved with (but more on that later).
• Ian Lynam: Graphic designer, art director, typographer, professor, dancer…
• James Kay: Game developer and founder of the Tokyo-based Score Studios.
• Jeriaska: Contributor to many a game coverage site, who tends to focus on the music side of the games industry.
• Johan Prag: Art director who just can’t help but create beautiful things.
• Johnny Strategy: If you aren’t reading his site, Spoon & Tamago, then head there now.
• Josh McKible: Illustrator and, more and more, papercraft enthusiast and creator of NaniBird.
• Mari Kojima: Photographer who will get your body moving in her guise as member of Mammal.
• Marie Iida: Writer, translator, soon-to-be filmmaker, and all-around project booster.
• Masao Tamoaki: Founder of the online select design shop TokyoMade.
• Micke Thorsby: You know him as PMKFA, the graphic designer extraordinaire.
• Mark MacDonald: A true veteran of the world of games editorial (EGM, 1UP), and current localizer of some of Japan’s biggest games.
• Paul Baron: Co-founder of Tokyo Art Beat — a site I can’t imagine having to live without — and designer at Tokyo-based web studio AQ.
• Patrick Benny: No one has followed the Japanese indies music scene as long or as closely as him, and he’s also founder of the still amazing Tokyo Recohan online select shop of used Japanese CDs.
• Remo Camerota: Filmmaker, art director, comic creator, he’s also the author of the terrific Graffiti Japan.
• Shane Lester: Designer and art director at W+K Tokyo, member of the W+K Tokyo Lab, and the person you’re least likely to catch up on while biking.
• Sophie Knight: Freelance writer and zine fanatic, who creates her own as well.
• Yoshi Tsujimura: The founder and editor-in-chief of OK Fred magazine, a freelance contributor to many a publication, and my fellow co-host of Radio OK Fred.

So there you have it, the amazing group that will help give life to SNOW, and that I again must thank publicly for agreeing to join me on this crazy project. This is also the last of my pre-launch teaser posts, and the next time I mention SNOW will be to announce its launch.