Not a crêpe, but trying

The crêpe is a thin sort of griddle-roasted pancake, often folded around a filling (fruit + nutella or savory food + nutella or just nutella or super-nutella + nutella), associated with France. Note the accent placement, and that filling a warm crêpe with a frozen material is heresy.

Now consult this photo. Can you spot any problems?

Far be it from me to condemn cultural reappropriation, but... I think what this sign means is is: ice cream cone. Shaped out of a thin pancake, I guess? Bizarre. But the cones were... well, conical. Also, filled with ice cream. And the accent is some strangeness never before seen by these widely-travelled and linguistically-versed eyes. The cooking setup was missing the usual crêpe griddle and tiny spreading-spatula, too. Everything about this was familiar, but just weird enough to feel uncomfortable.

I'm not sure how this confusion happened. Crepes are horizontal; cones are vertical; never the twain shall meet. I stand firm on this point. I walked away from "Grampa's Cŕepes" and instead bought a tiny hot pastry on a stick, shaped like a fish, which turned out to contain molten mouth-burning red bean paste. As of publication, the name of this delicacy remains unknown; I ordered by politely asking for "one of those."


This post's theme word is alterity, "the fact or state of being other or different," diversity, difference (brought to you by Miéville's Kraken, pg 299). The crêpe alterity fomented a cognitive dissonance familiar to the stranger in this strange land.

The stereotypical alley

This is essentially a piece of the world which has been fully realized to the specs of a William Gibson novel.

It is simply the most stereotypical Japanese late-night mostly-pedestrian food-, electronics-, and entertainment-alley that could instantiate the vertical neon writing necessary for the mood. And (apparently) for the general illumination of the area.

Photo taken minutes after sundown, but auto-light-adjustment lightened it to seem like a pervasively blue/purple sky. Human eyes saw it as entirely dark, with neon ground accents in the human areas. (At least, that is what humans reported to me.)

The neon light was a visually interesting texture, especially since so many surfaces were flat planes or reflective water. The city is so clean well-maintained that it looks almost rendered. If it were not for the oppressive heat/humidity combination, it would be quite lovely.


This post's theme word is perse, "of a greyish blue or purple color." The sky spread above the cityscape, a thick perse palette scraped across the firmament.