www-robinsloan-com-ebxc4s.txt (35924B)
1 [1]Home [2]About [3]Moonbound [4]Shop From: Robin Sloan 2 To: main newsletter 3 Sent: March 2026 4 5 Good trains 6 7 A Carload of Strawberries from California, 1909, Edward H. Mitchell [5]A 8 Carload of Strawberries from California, 1909, Edward H. Mitchell 9 10 Just back from Japan, my fifth substantial trip in ten years. At this point, 11 we have identified Our Favorite Places, and we simply return to them. This 12 kind of travel always seemed theoretical to me, something people only do in 13 novels … yet now there’s a fancy ryokan where they remember us, and a homey bar 14 in the same town where the owner shrieks: “You’re back!!” 15 16 It was my favorite Japan trip since my first. We went with friends and 17 discovered that we travel well together, which I think really just means we 18 are all capable of enjoying things to the same degree. 19 20 An underrated capability, that one. 21 22 Everywhere, there was such care, on scales ranging from the radius of a 23 cocktail bar to the sprawl of the shinkansen. More than once, the 24 self-admonishment arose: “Robin, you need to pay attention to this. It’s 25 remarkable, and it might not last forever. Pay attention!” 26 27 I’m Robin Sloan, a fiction writer with wide-ranging interests, which I capture 28 here in my newsletter. This is an archived edition, originally transmitted in 29 March 2026. You can sign up to receive future editions using the form at the 30 bottom of the page. 31 32 As usual, this newsletter has a few distinct parts. Here’s what’s ahead: 33 34 • [6]Japan thoughts: trains, books, more trains 35 36 • [7]Links and recommendations: computer stories, street lettering, 37 dungeon synth 38 39 [8]Japan thoughts 40 41 [9]The trains 42 43 I spend a lot of time in the San Joaquin Valley of California, where this 44 country’s first high-speed rail line is coming together, very slowly. Huge 45 elements of the route have been constructed but not yet connected. These 46 gleaming new bridges and platforms are legitimately beautiful; they loom in 47 the landscape like ruins in reverse. I’m a fan of the project, even though 48 it’s plainly a tragedy — [10]Abundance tells the comprehensive story. Actual 49 track goes down later this year, and all along the route, dirt is being pounded 50 into place, flat and smooth. 51 52 Japan’s first high-speed lines opened in the 1960s, and its architects have 53 had all the years since to press on: learning, extending, refining. Shinkansen 54 means “new trunk line”; it’s not so new anymore, yet riding those trains 55 remains legitimately futuristic, definitely superfun. And it feels truly 56 shameful for the U.S. to be so many decades behind. 57 58 It’s useful to note that in its initial development, the shinkansen went way 59 over budget — more than 2X. Yet there was never any question that it would be 60 completed. Think of Keynes: “Anything we can actually do, we can afford.” 61 62 I don’t intend any false equivalence here; even granted major handicaps for 63 U.S. dysfunction, the California line is a disaster. Yet there’s a hard, 64 grinding hope in the example of the shinkansen, which says: just finish it, so 65 you can really begin. 66 67 [11]The books 68 69 My Japanophilia is strongest in fiction. Here are some favorites: 70 71 • [12]Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata, translated by Ginny Tapley 72 Takemori, is strange and hypnotic — I can’t think of a recent U.S. novel 73 that’s simultaneously as unconventional and captivating. It’s also fun 74 to read as counterpoint to the cult of the konbini that has arisen among 75 visitors. (This includes me: I bow down before the Japanese 7-11.) 76 77 • [13]What You Are Looking for Is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama, 78 translated by Alison Watts, is sweet but/and also subtly radical. I 79 reviewed it [14]for the NYT, and here I’ll just repeat, this book is an 80 emblem for some quietly powerful features of Japanese society. I’d also 81 like to claim it for the Extended Penumbraverse; there’s no question the 82 strange and powerful Mrs. Komachi has met Ajax Penumbra. 83 84 • I’ve [15]written before about [16]Tokyo These Days, the manga series by 85 Taiyo Matsumoto, translated by Michael Arias — his profound love letter 86 to all his editors. The story and characters are wonderful, but/and so 87 is the rendering of the Japanese landscape, Tokyo and beyond. 88 89 • All of Banana Yoshimoto’s books are sweet and stylish, a pleasure to 90 read: tales of life in the city. Oh and they are short! WE LOVE A SHORT 91 BOOK. You can choose basically at random, but [17]Kitchen, translated by 92 Megan Backus, remains her most famous work. 93 94 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 95 96 That’s all Japanese work translated into English. Here are some books 97 originally written in English: 98 99 • [18]Ghosts of the Tsunami by Richard Lloyd Parry is probably a top-ten 100 work of 21st-century nonfiction. It’s profoundly haunting, and I’m so 101 impressed by Richard’s refusal to like, “collapse the wave function” of 102 possibility around the experiences and encounters reported by 103 survivors of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Here is reporting, in the 104 true sense: here’s what I saw, what I heard, what people told me. 105 106 • On another wavelength entirely, but likewise captivating, Richard’s [19] 107 People Who Eat Darkness is a hypnotic account of a gruesome crime, 108 offering a view of several layers of Japanese society that tourists don’t 109 see or think about. 110 111 • [20]How Kyoto Breaks Your Heart by Florentyna Leow is a slim, precise 112 memoir of living and working in Japan as a non-Japanese person — though one 113 who speaks fluent Japanese. It’s also simply about young life anywhere: 114 roommates and jobs, hopes and disappointments. You could read Florentyna 115 alongside Banana Yoshimoto and imagine characters from both books 116 meeting on a sidewalk. 117 118 • [21]Things Become Other Things by Craig Mod weaves a perceptive view of 119 Japan’s backroads together with a quintessentially American backstory 120 to produce an effect that is totally new. One definition of 121 literature, or any art maybe, is that it defines a fresh genre of which it 122 is the only example; I believe this describes TBOT. (On Craig’s book tour 123 last year, I was his interlocutor in San Francisco, and [22]you can 124 listen to and/or read our conversation here.) 125 126 • [23]Embracing Defeat by John Dower is deep and thrilling. Even a reader 127 well-acquainted with the 20th-century history of Japan and the U.S. will 128 discover in this book whole new panoramas of the postwar period: rich 129 crunchy dynamics, culture rewiring itself in realtime, and not with a 130 sense of erasure, but rather hypergenerative reconstruction. This book 131 challenges dull assumptions about “victory” and “defeat”, what they mean 132 on the most basic level; and about “success”, too — of a country, a 133 society, a culture. (The chapter on postwar publishing, the explosion of 134 pulp magazines, was of course particularly interesting to me.) 135 136 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 137 138 I love Japanese mysteries for their wacky, frigid construction — as if these 139 authors looked at the cold clockwork of the Sherlock Holmes stories and 140 said, “Oh, that’s WAY too loose and squishy.” 141 142 I’ve written before about [24]The Decagon House Murders, and more recently I 143 have enjoyed nearly every book in [25]this series from Pushkin Vertigo. (What a 144 name for an imprint — sounds like a character from a novel.) 145 146 I particularly enjoyed [26]The Honjin Murders and [27]The Devil’s Flute 147 Murders. The latter was translated by [28]Jim Rion, who also translated [29] 148 Strange Pictures, which has turned into a global bestseller. I haven’t read it 149 yet, but [30]Robin Rendle says it’s great! 150 151 Jim has written about [31]the process of translating a very strange book. 152 153 One more: [32]Point Zero by Seicho Matsumoto, translated by Louise Heal Kawai, 154 is like a Hitchcock movie crossed with one of those story problems: “Train A 155 leaves Tokyo traveling 200 m.p.h. … ” 156 157 [33]More trains 158 159 The best trains in Japan are the JR Kyushu trains, and those are the best 160 thanks to designer [34]Eiji Mitooka. You can [35]browse a gallery here, or [36] 161 take a look at the collection on Eiji Mitooka’s Wikipedia page. 162 163 Here’s the luxe Seven Stars: 164 165 Trains [37]Trains 166 167 The Yufuin no Mori: 168 169 Trains! [38]Trains! 170 171 And the 36+3! I have been a passenger on this one. Every day, you receive a 172 bento lunch assembled from ingredients produced in towns the train is 173 passing through: 174 175 TRAINS!! [39]TRAINS!! 176 177 It’s not just the cutesy trains that are great. Many different models of 178 shinkansen roam the tracks in Japan, and, to my eye, JR Kyushu’s look the best: 179 180 TRAIIINS!!! [40]TRAIIINS!!! 181 182 And it doesn’t stop at trains! Until recently, JR Kyushu operated a superfast 183 ferry from Fukuoka to South Korea, also designed by Eiji Mitooka. Behold THE 184 QUEEN BEETLE: 185 186 Not a train [41]Not a train 187 188 (Sadly … [42]it leaked.) 189 190 [43]Links and recommendations 191 192 A Carload of Navel Oranges from California, 1909, Edward H. Mitchell [44]A 193 Carload of Navel Oranges from California, 1909, Edward H. Mitchell 194 195 [45]Mr. President, please, I need a faster train … 196 197 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 198 199 The latest edition of [46]my pop-up newsletter is about [47]the limits of AI 200 automation. 201 202 In this short argument, I draw on lessons from sewing and olive harvesting, and 203 invest all my hopes for a non-robotic future in the great and powerful PAPER 204 JAM. 205 206 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 207 208 Here is David Oks on [48]why the ATM did not (as predicted) kill bank teller 209 jobs … but the iPhone did. What a great post — perfect use of data and details 210 to deflate a story that “seems right”. 211 212 David writes: 213 214 But by talking about why ATMs didn’t displace bank tellers but iPhones 215 did, I want to highlight an important corollary, which is that the true 216 force of a technology is felt not with the substitution of tasks, but 217 the invention of new paradigms. 218 219 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 220 221 Here’s another post that likewise “takes the question seriously”, and in this 222 case, the question is an all-timer: [49]why is the sky blue? 223 224 In my notes, I wrote: 225 226 An ideal flavor of explanation. Serious and open. “Let’s figure this out 227 together.” 228 229 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 230 231 I loved [50]this rollicking event at the Computer History Museum on the 232 occasion of Apple’s 50th anniversary, 1976-2026. Chris Espinosa’s 233 recollection of [51]a particular service procedure for the Apple III 234 made my day. There’s no escaping physical reality! 235 236 The CHM is a treasure; if you live in the San Francisco Bay Area you MUST at 237 some point make your pilgrimage, just to gaze at the glorious hulks. Last 238 summer, I wrote [52]a quick dispatch from the Vintage Computer Festival, 239 which is maybe a bit overwhelming for your first experience, but always 240 totally spectacular. 241 242 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 243 244 Here is [53]a lovely memoir of a youthful career at Babbage’s, which fellow 245 oldtimers will remember as the preeminent software store. Yes: we used to 246 GO TO A STORE to purchase computer programs! 247 248 The rise and fall of Babbage’s “rhymes” completely with the 249 dematerialization of other media, and in all these cases, at least two 250 things are true: 251 252 1. The new arrangement produces breathtaking new forms of access: it has 253 become trivial for basically anybody to participate in these markets. 254 255 And yet, somehow, 256 257 2. the old arrangement was tons more fun! 258 259 [54]Read Lee Hutchinson’s recollection and tell me you disagree. 260 261 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 262 263 I am waiting patiently for the launch of [55]the Slate truck at the end of this 264 year. I’ve been leasing a Volkswagen ID.4 since the summer, and the actual 265 driving experience is wonderful — I just want to rip the screen off the 266 dashboard and throw it out the window. 267 268 Come on, Slate! Give us the screen-free EV of our dreams! 269 270 Bonus: Slate’s headquarters is in the town where I grew up 😌 271 272 Bonus bonus: Slate’s first factory is an old printing plant 😌😌 273 274 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 275 276 Here is [56]the new typeface from Mass-Driver. Robin Rendle [57]notes the 277 confidence of this release, and I agree with him: it’s bracing and charismatic. 278 Also beautiful, of course. 279 280 Mass-Driver’s [58]Lórien has become my house font for print productions, and 281 you’ll be seeing more of it later this year. 282 283 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 284 285 My copy of [59]Pooja Saxena’s [60]India Street Lettering arrived! 286 287 India Street Lettering [61]India Street Lettering 288 289 It’s fabulous — every spread glows: 290 291 India Street Lettering [62]India Street Lettering 292 293 Come on! 294 295 India Street Lettering [63]India Street Lettering 296 297 Pooja’s [64]incandescent compendium is a required purchase for anyone 298 interesting in typography, graphic design, and/or urban space. It exists 299 thanks to Blaft, the publisher responsible for one of my all-time favorites, 300 [65]Ghosts, Monsters, and Demons of India. 301 302 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 303 304 Here is [66]a recent edition of The Animation Obsessive that is, slantwise, 305 a manifesto about effort, skill, and the power of just making something with 306 whatever’s before you: perhaps just [67]sand and a source of light. Great 307 stuff. 308 309 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 310 311 Here’s [68]the stationery from the Streamliner, a luxe train route that 312 operated between Chicago and San Francisco circa 1936-1972: 313 314 We have retreated from the true pinnacle of coolness [69]We have retreated from 315 the true pinnacle of coolness 316 317 “Enroute”!! 318 319 That’s from [70]Stationery Object, a swoonworthy project by [71]Robert 320 Stephens. 321 322 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 323 324 Oof … JetPens with a direct hit to the aesthetic core, [72]this video profile 325 of a Japanese notebook maker … meltdown in 5, 4, 3 … 326 327 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 328 329 Here’s the backstory of [73]a certain shade of seafoam green you have seen if 330 you’ve spent any time in industrial spaces. I loved this post from Beth 331 Mathews — it’s beautifully presented, packed with pictures. I found my way 332 here [74]thanks to Drew Austin at Kneeling Bus. 333 334 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 335 336 Here’s a good post by Drew, a few years old but new to me, arguing that [75] 337 tech’s indifference to fashion is a contempt for the commons. That’s via 338 [76]Spencer Chang. 339 340 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 341 342 Spencer, by the way, is on a roll, with recent reports on a substantial visit 343 to China: [77]part 1, [78]part 2. That second dispatch focuses on the digital 344 side of the experience: 345 346 It all started to make sense when I discovered that websites in China 347 are built on a completely different, insular substrate of 348 infrastructure. Mini-apps are made of custom forks of HTML, proprietary 349 ones for each major company, each with their own rules and syntax.3 From 350 the outside (and as a foreigner), you can’t even access most of the apps 351 because they are gated behind login screens that require Chinese phone 352 numbers. 353 354 Living in China means living in an alternate Internet. 355 356 A weird hybrid between traditional mobile apps and websites, these apps 357 feel uniform and impersonal, while streamlining all the core parts of an 358 everyday app. They load fast, even on old hardware, connect 359 automatically to your identity, and integrate directly with your wallet 360 for payments. 361 362 You might have read versions of “the China report” before, but it’s genuinely 363 different and useful to encounter this experience filtered through 364 Spencer’s gaze, his analytical frame: humane and tactile, rather than 365 commercial and abstract. 366 367 Spencer is one of the great integrators of the digital and physical; [79] 368 his newsletter is absolutely worth following, a guide toward an alternate 369 internet of its own. 370 371 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 372 373 Looking at train-adjacent art for this edition, I discovered [80]this 1909 374 photo of John Jacob Astor, and found myself really captivated by his 375 expression: 376 377 John Jacob Astor leaning from a train window, 1909 [81]John Jacob Astor leaning 378 from a train window, 1909 379 380 Maybe a stretch, but I detect a trace of [82]angel-of-history energy there … 381 382 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 383 384 [83]BEHOLD, GALVATRON! A few weeks ago I came across this clip from The 385 Transformers: The Movie, and remembered (or realized) that this scene in 386 particular is a top-five formative aesthetic input of my life. 387 388 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 389 390 I’m a fan of the music subgenre called dungeon synth, which tends to sound 391 like the soundtrack to a video game you can only dimly remember. [84]Hole 392 Dweller is great as a starting point. Possibly my #1 favorite is [85]this 393 album by Rhandir and Disparition, which was in heavy rotation while I wrote 394 [86]Moonbound. That playlist was 25% dungeon synth, 25% [87]Håkon Kornstad, 395 and 50% every version of Seven Nation Army ever recorded. 396 397 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 398 399 A think tank posted a link to [88]this chart … 400 401 USDA Charts of Note [89]USDA Charts of Note 402 403 … [90]calling it “a slow, steady, easy-to-miss kind of progress.” 404 405 Yet … you’d have to know a lot more to make that judgment, wouldn’t you? For 406 example, one might ask, is the food on the right side of the graph as 407 nutritious as the food on the left side? What’s the composition of the 408 average meal on either side? And what about the wages of the people producing 409 and packaging the food? 410 411 An exercise: plot the trend in healthcare costs on the same graph. 412 413 My instinct tells me that about half of the change is indeed positive, 414 attributable to plain old productivity, while the other half is malign, and 415 we’d be better off as a society if that trendline tracked a little higher. 416 417 Food is life’s foundation; it powers our muscles and our minds; who said it 418 ought to be cheap? 419 420 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 421 422 Here is an actually-hilarious offering from SNL: [91]an interview with the 423 most- and least-used emojis. 424 425 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 426 427 Here is [92]Dirt Books! Anytime anybody dares (or bothers) to launch a weird 428 new imprint in the 21st century, we cheer! 429 430 P.S. I liked this recent Dirt piece: [93]The feeling of the old world fading 431 away 432 433 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 434 435 Here is [94]an interview with Astrid Eichhorn, a physicist working on 436 “asymptotic safety”, which might be summarized as “the only way out is 437 through”: 438 439 The apparent breakdown of particle physics at [the Planck] scale has 440 inspired some dramatic theories. Some physicists argue that this failure 441 point in our understanding tells us that the universe is fundamentally 442 composed not of particles, but of vibrating strings and membranes. [ … ] 443 444 Eichhorn and her colleagues are pursuing a different possibility. In 445 1976, Steven Weinberg, a theorist who would eventually earn a Nobel 446 Prize, pointed out that if you zoomed in far enough, you might reach a 447 place where the rules of physics would stop changing. New realms would stop 448 appearing; the intensities of the forces would stabilize; and gravity 449 would turn out to make perfect sense after all. 450 451 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 452 453 Here is a fabulous matchup: [95]Dwarkesh Patel interviews Ada Palmer. 454 Dwarkesh is best-known for his interviews of AI luminaries, but/and his side 455 quests into history are reliably magnetic. Ada is a celebrated author of 456 science fiction who is also a historian of the Renaissance. 457 458 The segment [96]discussing Gutenberg and the very early days of the printing 459 press is particularly compelling. I have read a lot — really a lot! — about 460 this period, yet I found new framings here; I love Ada’s focus on 461 distribution networks. This is just extremely fun and interesting all 462 around. 463 464 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 465 466 One of the private contractors building California’s high-speed rail line 467 graces us with the most William Gibson-ass name you’ve ever heard: [97]Dragados 468 Flatiron 😎 469 470 A Carload of Potato from California, 1909, Edward H. Mitchell [98]A Carload of 471 Potato from California, 1909, Edward H. Mitchell 472 473 Here’s [99]a reminder, from Alan Jacobs, of the power of a phrase and an image 474 from Robert Macfarlane: 475 476 A decade ago Robert Macfarlane published a wonderful book called 477 Landmarks [ … ] which argues for the preservation and extension of the 478 accurate description of our natural environments. The book collects, 479 from a range of British places, local words for local things, and 480 Macfarlane calls that collection his Counter-Desecration Phrasebook. It 481 occurs to me that we need many Counter-Desecration Phrasebooks to help us 482 protect and preserve what Gandalf calls “all worthy things that are in 483 peril as the world now stands.” 484 485 Macfarlane’s focus is on the precision of local language, yet in Alan’s 486 endorsement I detect the possibility of broader application. For my part, I 487 think any and every little personal newsletter or blog, if it’s constructed 488 with sincerity and care, acts as a tiny CDP. Or perhaps it provides one page 489 in the larger CDP: still meager compared to all the books of ruin on all the 490 shelves of the world … and so what? 491 492 CARLOAD OF POTATO! 493 494 From Oakland, 495 496 Robin 497 498 P.S. You’ll receive my next newsletter in mid-April, containing the 499 announcement of a new project and a new product. 500 501 March 2026 502 503 I’m [100]Robin Sloan, a writer, printer, & manufacturer. The best thing to do 504 here is sign up for my email newsletter: 505 506 [101][ ] [102][Subscribe] 507 This website doesn’t collect any information about you or your reading. 508 It aspires to the speed and privacy of the printed page. 509 510 Don’t miss [103]the colophon. Hony soyt qui mal pence 511 512 513 References: 514 515 [1] https://www.robinsloan.com/ 516 [2] https://www.robinsloan.com/about/ 517 [3] https://www.robinsloan.com/moonbound/ 518 [4] https://www.robinsloan.com/shop/ 519 [5] https://pdimagearchive.org/images/66f6eaa7-2369-47bf-a2d3-321e06af8514/ 520 [6] https://www.robinsloan.com/newsletters/good-trains/#rooms 521 [7] https://www.robinsloan.com/newsletters/good-trains/#links 522 [8] https://www.robinsloan.com/newsletters/good-trains/#japan 523 [9] https://www.robinsloan.com/newsletters/good-trains/#japan-trains 524 [10] https://bookshop.org/a/541/9781668023488?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 525 [11] https://www.robinsloan.com/newsletters/good-trains/#japan-books 526 [12] https://bookshop.org/a/541/9780802129628?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 527 [13] https://bookshop.org/a/541/9781335147158?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 528 [14] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/05/books/what-you-are-looking-for-is-in-the-library-michiko-aoyama.html?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 529 [15] https://www.robinsloan.com/newsletters/double-pulse/#books 530 [16] https://bookshop.org/a/541/9781974738809?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 531 [17] https://bookshop.org/a/541/9780802142443?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 532 [18] https://bookshop.org/a/541/9781250192813?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 533 [19] https://bookshop.org/a/541/9781250390585?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 534 [20] https://theemmapress.com/shop/prose/essays/how-kyoto-breaks-your-heart/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 535 [21] https://bookshop.org/a/541/9780593732540?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 536 [22] https://craigmod.com/books/things_become_other_things/tourpod/04-booksmith-robin_sloan/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 537 [23] https://bookshop.org/a/541/9780393320275?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 538 [24] https://www.robinsloan.com/notes/decagon-house-murders/ 539 [25] https://pushkinpress.com/collection/japanese-crime/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 540 [26] https://bookshop.org/a/541/9781782275008?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 541 [27] https://bookshop.org/a/541/9781782278849?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 542 [28] https://jimrion.com/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 543 [29] https://bookshop.org/a/541/9780063433083?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 544 [30] https://robinrendle.com/notes/strange-pictures/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 545 [31] https://jimrion.com/2025/01/23/translating-strange-pictures/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 546 [32] https://bookshop.org/a/541/9781913394936?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 547 [33] https://www.robinsloan.com/newsletters/good-trains/#japan-more-trains 548 [34] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiji_Mitooka?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 549 [35] https://www.jrkyushu.co.jp/english/train/index.html?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 550 [36] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiji_Mitooka?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 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https://davidoks.blog/p/why-the-atm-didnt-kill-bank-teller?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 563 [49] https://explainers.blog/posts/why-is-the-sky-blue/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 564 [50] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCSNJgI2LFI 565 [51] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCSNJgI2LFI#t=32m30s 566 [52] https://www.robinsloan.com/newsletters/inevitable-technologies/ 567 [53] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/01/how-i-launched-3-consoles-and-found-true-love-at-babbages-store-no-9/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 568 [54] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/01/how-i-launched-3-consoles-and-found-true-love-at-babbages-store-no-9/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 569 [55] https://www.slate.auto/en?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 570 [56] https://mass-driver.com/typefaces/md-ui/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 571 [57] https://robinrendle.com/notes/reading-without-reading/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 572 [58] https://mass-driver.com/typefaces/md-lorien/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 573 [59] https://www.instagram.com/matratype/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 574 [60] https://www.blaft.com/products/india-street-lettering?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 575 [61] https://www.blaft.com/products/india-street-lettering?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 576 [62] https://www.blaft.com/products/india-street-lettering?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 577 [63] https://www.blaft.com/products/india-street-lettering?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 578 [64] https://www.blaft.com/products/india-street-lettering?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 579 [65] https://www.blaft.com/collections/new-arrivals/products/ghosts-monsters-and-demons-of-india?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 580 [66] https://animationobsessive.substack.com/p/sand-and-a-source-of-light?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 581 [67] https://animationobsessive.substack.com/p/sand-and-a-source-of-light?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 582 [68] https://stationeryobject.com/posts/streamliner-city-of-san-francisco-train/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 583 [69] https://stationeryobject.com/posts/streamliner-city-of-san-francisco-train/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 584 [70] https://stationeryobject.com/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 585 [71] https://www.robertstephens.com/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 586 [72] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_UvVavl-eE 587 [73] https://bethmathews.substack.com/p/why-so-many-control-rooms-were-seafoam?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 588 [74] https://kneelingbus.substack.com/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 589 [75] https://reallifemag.com/worn-out/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 590 [76] https://spencer.place/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 591 [77] https://news.spencer.place/p/chinese-period-of-my-life-a-visit?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 592 [78] https://news.spencer.place/p/the-chinese-internet?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 593 [79] https://news.spencer.place/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 594 [80] https://pdimagearchive.org/images/c5961d1a-89c0-4506-89a2-8c458935710b/ 595 [81] https://pdimagearchive.org/images/c5961d1a-89c0-4506-89a2-8c458935710b/ 596 [82] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelus_Novus?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 597 [83] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzUU-aiDm-c 598 [84] https://holedweller.bandcamp.com/track/an-empty-tankard-of-ale-at-the-floating-log-inn?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 599 [85] https://disparition.bandcamp.com/album/troika-ep?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 600 [86] https://www.robinsloan.com/moonbound/ 601 [87] https://hakonkornstad.bandcamp.com/album/live-in-sarajevo?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 602 [88] https://ers.usda.gov/data-products/charts-of-note/chart-detail?chartId=100002&utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 603 [89] https://ers.usda.gov/data-products/charts-of-note/chart-detail?chartId=100002&utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 604 [90] https://x.com/HumanProgress/status/2028636514414915783?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 605 [91] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59CpJqCbxXs 606 [92] https://books.dirt.fyi/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 607 [93] https://dirt.fyi/article/2026/02/the-feeling-of-the-old-world-fading-away?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 608 [94] https://www.quantamagazine.org/where-some-see-strings-she-sees-a-space-time-made-of-fractals-20260311/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 609 [95] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAIhVfGbREA 610 [96] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAIhVfGbREA#t=58m12s 611 [97] https://www.dfcp23.com/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 612 [98] https://pdimagearchive.org/images/ba5855cc-22d7-48ce-bcdd-0220700bf5d8/ 613 [99] https://social.ayjay.org/2026/02/25/a-decade-ago-robert-macfarlane.html?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 614 [100] https://www.robinsloan.com/about?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me 615 [103] https://www.robinsloan.com/colophon/