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Emma, John and Rowan finished school for the term which of course means we’re now in Hell. I plan to switch to working from home two days a week rather than three but I’m not sure what we’re going to do to keep them occupied. Oh, and the summer heat is oppressive enough that I think we might actually be in Hell.
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Rowan wanted to go out on a shinkansen and so I made a deal that if we did that, we had to go to a museum first. I thought the easiest choice (given its relative proximity to Tokyo Station) was the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (Wikipedia). I’ve written about MOMAT before (the abbreviation is not a typo) and it remains one of my favourite galleries in Tokyo almost because of its relative lack of popularity. I wasn’t sure what to expect from Hiroshi Sugimoto: Extinction but I thought it was excellent. I’m not familiar with Sugimoto and while the exhibition is arguably the equivalent of a greatest hits album, for someone new to work this was great. I must say that Rowan held up exceptionally well. I wasn’t sure whether I’d spend the entire time wrestling him but fortunately no.
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Crossmate passed App Review and is on the App Store! So far I’ve had literally zero (zero!) responses from Apple pundits I’ve told about it so it seems unlikely to set the world on fire. Still, if you’re eager to get into my good books, check it out unprompted (well, outside of this prompt) and then tell me how amazing it is.
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Speaking of things with a limited audience, Josh Kingsford (the comedian behind the YouTube channel Comedy Without Errors) has released the last instalment in his sprawling 5-part series about Louis C.K. (full playlist). Kingsford explores the allegations against Louis C.K. that led to his cancellation, C.K.’s response to these allegations and C.K.’s return to cultural relevance (he released a novel, Ingram in November 2025 and his new Netflix special, Ridiculous, premiered on 30 June 2026). The entire thing runs for more than six hours. I can really only recommend it to people who loved C.K.’s comedy as much as I did. The short version? C.K. is an extremely talented liar without contrition. I disagree with some aspects of Kingsford’s argument in the final video about separating the art from the artist but in this case, I agree that it’s extremely difficult to do that with C.K.
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I really liked Mike Masnick’s essay, ‘Enshittification, Despotification, and the Open Internet’. Masnick is the author behind the website, Techdirt. He’s been writing about online platforms for some time and his essay, ‘Protocols, Not Platforms’, was an important influence on the AT Protocol (the highest profile usage of which is the microblogging site, Bluesky). In ‘Enshittification’, he explains how the architecture of an online services shapes the incentives that prevent (or at least limit) these services becoming worse for users over time.
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To fit this week’s theme, I think the musical selection needs to be something pretty esoteric. Is it fair to put Thievery Corporation’s ‘Lebanese Blonde’ (Apple Music) into that category? I’m not sure but let’s.
