Warning!

This blog was hit by a couple of catastrophes in 2017 that broke many image links and introduced malicious lines of code that have now been neutralized but are still  disfiguring many older entries of the blog.

Please bear with us while we are undergoing the  long process of repairing the blog! The most important part of this blog is still there — the words to read and the ideas to share — but the aesthetic of the presentation has unfortunately suffered.

Thank you for your understanding and support!

— clodjee   

I am a blogger, library assistant, historian and have been for a long time the editor-in-chief for a (now defunct) magazine about Japanese media and popular culture. I live in my little shell, my safe-house, observing the world from the middle of its mediatic web.

On this blog I will comment and rant about everything but mostly about (proto) culture: anime & manga, cats & flowers, cinema & photography, history & science-fiction, Japan & technology, library & books, life & its many absurdities…

Why write a blog? I guess the main impulse is to share my thoughts on the subjects which are dear to me (books in general but more particularly manga; literature but more specifically genre literature — like science-fiction and fantasy; cinema in general but mostly sci-fi and Japanese movies; history but I am particularly interested in ancient history — like the Roman Empire — or Japanese history). I guess I am someone curious and inquisitive, so I have a pretty large field of interests and therefore this blog will touch to about anything.

Another reason for blogging is simply to keep my mind busy. Being active and engaged, physically and mentally, is the best way to stay healthy. There is an history of Alzheimer’s disease in my family, so I want to make sure that I won’t let my brain go idle. Also, expressing our fears, concerns or even pet peeve is a good way to understand and control them — and, again, keep a good mental hygiene.

I once wrote that a blog was a little like a personal diary that you leave on the corner of a table in the hope that someone will read it. Maybe it is also a way to leave some traces of myself, of my existence, to say “I lived” or “I was here”. Hopefully, someone will read this blog and they will get interested, touched, enriched by it. I want to share my thoughts, my feelings, but, above all, my experience and my views of the world.

Writing and sharing whatever I learned, as well as my little bit of wisdom, is my small way to partake in the greater good of our society. Because I believe that knowledge is the most important aspect of our lives. That’s what separate us from the animals: the ability to share and accumulate knowledge through language and writing enable us to constantly built up and improve our civilization. Ignorance is the mother of all evils: hatred and violence, all that is bad, take their sources in the lack of understanding of others and of the world. One should always strive everyday to improve him/herself and to increase his or her knowledge and understanding of the world. That’s my philosophy and probably another reason why I blog.

In the end, this blog is about acquiring and sharing knowledge. I might write because the pen is mightier than the sword, but I also use a lot of pictures because I am lazy and a picture is worth a thousand words.

Beware: this blog WILL be bilingual (part in French and part in English) ! I usually comment in the same language than the title I read (for books or manga) or watched (for Dvds or movies). For general stuff, I’ll post in English to reach a larger audience. For more personal stuff, I’ll probably post in French. However, I’ll do my best to add (most of the time) a link toward Google Translate to convert English posts to French and vice versa. Be warned: this is auto-translation,  so the quality and accuracy of the translation is often poor but at least you’ll get the gist of it (and, if not, have a good laugh).

I apologize in advance if I offend anyone when speaking my mind or making a bad word-play and especially for my imperfect grammar and spelling (in both languages — and lets not forget that English is a second language for me, learned in my twenties; I wish I could be a much better polyglot). I do my best to respect the right usage and rules (I revise my texts a couple of times before publishing) but, frankly, correctitude is not my priority as long as my readers can understand what I mean to say. The communication of ideas must not be impeded or slowed down by the need of exactitude or perfection.

In the top menu, you will find a list of the main post categories. Most of my posts are reading (Books, Manga) or viewing (Cinema) comments. [Please read the notice of warning about possible spoilers] I wrote an article explaining how I approach making such comments (my policies or criteria — it’s written in French but you can check the auto-translated version). I do “retro-blogging” and “scrap-linking”. Periodically, I reflect on the latest notable news (Press Review), in my life and in the world, and gather links to the stories I found the most interesting at the time. I also share some of my poetry, my pictures of cats, flowers and natural landscapes (Photography) or some of my wife’s paintings (Art). A more complete list of categories and tags can be found in the sidebar.

Also in the top menu, you will find direct links to the main articles and essays that I wrote (References). It includes a bibliography of my works and a biographical notice.

Finally, in the sidebar, you will find links to the various social media that I use so you can follow me and let me know what you think of all this [Alternatively, if you have any comments or requests you can also contact me here]. Good reading!

As for the usual disclaimer, this is my personal blog therefore the opinions expressed herein are mine only and do not necessarily represent those of my employers, associates, governments or any other people of this planet.

Permission is required before reproducing any parts, but you can link freely.

All content © clodjee, 2005-2023.

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