What's with the trash!?

"Why is there trash here? The train is not a garbage can."

I was out of the country at the beginning of the month when the posters changed. (I'm squeaking it in here under the wire for the Tokyo Metro manners posters completists out there!) You do see the occasional bottle or wrapper on the trains in Tokyo. On the whole, though, Japanese public spaces have a few orders of magnitude less litter and grime than comparable public spaces in US cities. It's weird, getting back to the states; until your eyes adjust, you see little problems everywhere that seem easily fixed. "Why don't they repave those dangerous potholes!?" you think. "Why hasn't this paint been touched up in the last 20 years!? Who let the shelves at the grocery store get so untidy!?" And, "Oh my god you have got to be kidding me, why is the cashier waving around the wine chiller she's ringing up for me and shouting at the woman at the next register that she would like one of these for her birthday which is in three weeks and none of y'all better forget!?"
After a few days, though, questions like "Why is there trash here!?" start to seem pointless, and you stop noticing the blemishes. Until, that is, you get back to Tokyo and a piece of garbage out of place seems noteworthy again.
If history is any guide, December's poster will be about public drunkenness. Check back soon!

Wonderful Life with the Elements

What we really want to know about an element - how do I say it in Japanese, and will it make my voice sound funny?

I was excited when No Starch press offered to send a copy of Bunpei Yorifuji's Wonderful Life with the Elements to check out. The book is a delight! Am I supposed to be objective? I don't know, I've never done a book review before. My sense is that I'm supposed to say if I liked it or not, and I did. The drawings are charming (I wonder how many Bunpei character tattoos there are out there?) and the information in it is deceptively rich. I can imagine this book could capture the imagination of a kid at just the right moment, when they're deciding whether to stick with chemistry or write it off as something they'll never really get.

My high school chemistry teacher used to warn everyone to keep both feet firmly planted inside the chemistry train and hold on tight, because "the chemistry train keeps chugging along, and once you fall off, it's real hard to get back on!" He'd check in with everyone from time to time, asking, "Okay? You still on board? How many atoms in a mole? Right! Don't fall off!" I pretty much stayed on, at least through the second semester of organic, in college. (Isn't that enough?) I was never particularly into Japan or Japanese stuff in high school or most of college. If I had been, though? I probably would have papered my dorm room with the pages of this book.

I wrote more about Elements on Japan Pulse, where I am now editing more than writing.